NEWS
What is a MOOC ?
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are free online courses that anybody can take, and those who complete the course can earn an official certificate for a fee. Top universities around the world offer MOOCs, and the total number of registered learners on the Coursera and edX platforms has reached more than 130 million. Along with self improvement, learners are using MOOCs to improve their professional skills, and the individually validated certificates are helping learners advance in the workplace and make career changes.
Featured Courses
Four Facets of Contemporary Japanese Architecture: Theory
This series will explore four facets of contemporary Japanese architecture; theory, technology, city, and humans. It will also span five generations of architects since Kenzo Tange. Through lectures by instructors and discussions with the most influential Japanese architects, the course will trace the development of contemporary Japanese architecture and will consider its future direction. In this first course, we will focus on one of the four facets of Japanese architecture: theory. The theory portion will feature discussions with architects who played a significant role in influencing the development of theoretical frameworks that contributed to guiding contemporary Japanese architecture. Terunobu Fujimori, Arata Isozaki, Hisao Kohyama, Kengo Kuma, Hidetoshi Ohno, and Kazuyo Sejima will visit their buildings and discuss the ideas behind their respective works. In the coming courses on technology, city, and humans, the following leading Japanese architects will discuss their work — Tadao Ando, Shigeru Ban, Manabu Chiba, Sou Fujimoto, Hiroshi Hara, Itsuko Hasegawa, Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma, Fumihiko Maki, Kazuhiko Namba, Yusuke Obuchi, Satoko Shinohara, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, and Riken Yamamoto. Don’t miss the rest of this great series!
From the Big Bang to Dark Energy
We have learned a lot recently about how the Universe evolved in 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang. More than 80% of matter in the Universe is mysterious Dark Matter, which made stars and galaxies to form. The newly discovered Higgs-boson became frozen into the Universe a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang and brought order to the Universe. Yet we still do not know how ordinary matter (atoms) survived against total annihilation by Anti-Matter. The expansion of the Universe started acceleration about 7 billion years ago and the Universe is being ripped apart. The culprit is Dark Energy, a mysterious energy multiplying in vacuum. I will present evidence behind these startling discoveries and discuss what we may learn in the near future.
Four Facets of Contemporary Japanese Architecture: City
This is the third course in the “Four Facets of Contemporary Japanese Architecture” series, which focuses on the third facet: city. After the 1970s, Japanese architects are said to have stopped conceptualizing cities and instead focused on designing the individual buildings that make up the cities. However, as cities continue to undergo significant transformations in response to globalization, the advent of information technologies, and so on, Japanese architects are once again engaging the city, and doing so in unique ways. This course on “City” will review the works of those architects who have attempted to conceptualize cities through their architecture and examine the changes over the last half century as well as the issues for the future. Fumihiko Maki, Itsuko Hasegawa, Riken Yamamoto, Kengo Kuma, Jun Aoki, and Atelier Bow-Wow (Yoshiharu Tsukamoto & Momoyo Kaijima) visit their buildings to discuss the ideas behind their respective works.
Quantum Mechanics of Molecular Structures
Knowing the geometrical structure of the molecules around us is one of the most important and fundamental issues in the field of chemistry. This course introduces the two primary methods used to determine the geometrical structure of molecules: molecular spectroscopy and gas electron diffraction. In molecular spectroscopy, molecules are irradiated with light or electric waves to reveal rich information, including: Motions of electrons within a molecule (Week 1), Vibrational motions of the nuclei within a molecule (Week 2), and Rotational motions of a molecule (Week 3). In the gas electron diffraction method, molecules are irradiated with an accelerated electron beam. As the beam is scattered by the nuclei within the molecule, the scattered waves interfere with each other to generate a diffraction pattern. In week 4, we study the fundamental mechanism of electron scattering and how the resulting diffraction images reveal the geometrical structure of molecules. By the end of the course, you will be able to understand molecular vibration plays an important role in determining the geometrical structure of molecules and gain a fuller understanding of molecular structure from the information obtained by the two methodologies.
Got a Minute?
Your opinion matters to us, and we would love to hear about your recommendations on interesting UTokyo courses/lectures that could go worldwide. It would help us create high-quality MOOC courses.
TAKE OUR SURVEY