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LORNA GIBSON: So
really the way I

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set up the lectures
is I write out

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notes for myself of
what I want to cover,

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and the notes are
pretty detailed.

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And in the past I always
just had the notes for me.

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And even though they
were reasonably neat

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and I could read them, I didn't
hand them out to the students.

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But because I've turned my
fall course into an MITx course

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and I want to make the lecture
notes available for that,

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when I was doing that course for
MITx I made really nice notes.

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And a friend of
mine who lectures,

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I was asking her how she did it,
and she said she actually goes

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and measures the chalkboard,
and she measures the aspect

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ratio, how tall to
wide the chalkboard is.

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And then she sets up her notes
so that they're the same aspect

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ratio, and she plans
out exactly where

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she's going to put everything
on the board on her notes.

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And so I started doing that.

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And when I'm doing the lecture
I put it all on the board,

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and I find a lot
of students-- even

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though I hand the
notes out now-- they

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like to write their own notes.

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And I think it helps them
pay attention in class

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and helps them kind of
focus on the material.

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So another thing I do in
the lectures, when I first

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started lecturing and
for a long time I just

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focused on the engineering,
you know, on the equations,

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this is the derivation,
this is an example,

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this is how you use this.

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And it was all just about
kind of the engineering

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of whatever I was working on.

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And I found over
the last few years,

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actually in both courses, in the
fall one on mechanical behavior

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and in the spring course
on cellular solids,

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I look for more interesting
examples and stories, kind

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of stories about the
people who discovered

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some of the principles
that we talk about.

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I tell them stories about
engineering situations that

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came up and there was some
interesting thing happened.

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And the students love it.

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I mean, they really like having
the kind of hard core mechanics

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broken up with some
sort of stories.

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So I do that a lot more
now than I used to do.

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So probably most
lecturers have some kind

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of interesting example
or historical thing

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that I talk about.

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So for instance, when I
teach the fall course,

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the mechanical
behavior materials,

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one of the first things
we talk about is stress.

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So stress is a
force per unit area.

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If I take this piece a wood
and I pull on it like this

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I'm pulling on it with a
force that goes out like this.

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Stress is just that force
divided by that area.

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And the unit of stress in the
SI system is called the Pascal.

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And it's named
after Blaise Pascal

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who's a French mathematician.

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And a couple of years ago I
was in France for a conference

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and I was in a little town
called Clermont-Ferrand,

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which is in the
middle of France.

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It's a pretty little town.

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And I'm just walking
around one day

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kind of seeing the square
and the cathedral and all

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this stuff, and I
see there is sign,

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there's like Pascal
something or another.

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And this was apparently the
site of Blaise Pascal's house.

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And right next door
to it is Cafe Pascal.

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So of course, I have to take
a photograph of Cafe Pascal.

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And in this other course, when
we get to the bit about stress

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and I tell them
about the Pascal I

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show them the picture
of the Cafe Pascal.

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And the other amusing thing
that they kind of get a kick

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out of because of Boston, you
know how in Boston there's

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the Freedom Trail and
there's a red line

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goes around all these
historical sites

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all this colonial and
revolutionary stuff

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around Boston.

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It's kind of cool, all
the tourists to it.

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Well in Clermont-Ferrand
there's a Pascal Trail.

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And there's little
metal medallions

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of the portrait of Blaise
Pascal put in the sidewalk

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and you can walk
around Clermont-Ferrand

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doing the Pascal Trail.

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So I kind of keep an eye
out for stuff like that

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and I put that into
the course now,

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and I never used to
do that kind of stuff.

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I have a picture from
the Library of Congress,

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which I went to just
for fun a while ago.

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And one of the main buildings is
this old, beautiful historical

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building for the
Library of Congress.

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And they have a marble staircase
that goes up the middle.

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And the staircase has
all these little cherubs.

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And there's an
agriculture cherub

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and he's holding
a sheaf of wheat.

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And there's a wine
cherub and he's holding

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a little thing of grapes.

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Well, it turns out
there's a mechanics cherub

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and he's holding a gear.

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So at the end of
the first lecture

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I show them the mechanic's
cherub with the gear.

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So there's these
cute little things.

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So I just keep an eye out
for these cute little things.

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And last fall, this past
fall, one of the students

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came up at the end of the
first lecture and he said,

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I really like art.

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And he says, is there going
to be more art in the class?

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And I'm like, not usually.

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This has kind of exhausted
my art in mechanics.

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And I said, but I'll
keep an eye out.

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And through the term there
actually were different things

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that I saw that had to
do with mechanics and art

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I showed the class.

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So one of them was at the
Peabody Essex Museum this fall

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there's been and display of the
mobile sculptures of Alexander

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Calder.

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And they also made
these very large,

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I think they're called
stabile sculptures, as well.

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The big sail at MIT is
one of his sculptures.

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And these mobiles are
actually a really nice example

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of free body diagrams in
mechanics and balancing

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the forces.

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So anyway, I got a picture
of one of his mobiles

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and I went up to the exhibit.

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And when I was at
the exhibit I found

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that he did a degree in
mechanical engineering.

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He actually was a
mechanical engineer.

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And so the students
were very, very tickled

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by the sculpture, the fact
that he studied engineering.

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So anyway, I look out
for stuff like that.