The Political Economy of Development [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Tim Besley | It is widely recognised that the interplay of political and economic forces has a major bearing on the path of development. How do the developments in the recent political economy literature bear on the practical problems that some countries face in achieving sustainable development paths? Tim Besley is Professor of Economics and Political Science at the London School of Economics, and served on the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee from September 200
Optimal Financial Structure and Economic Development [Audio]
Speaker(s): Dr Justin Yifu Lin | The Optimal Financial Structure of a specific stage of development in an economy is determined by the structures of industries and firm sizes in the economy. These, in turn, are determined by the economy's factor endowments at that stage. This lecture will discuss the existence on an endogenously determined optimal composition of various financial arrangements, that is, optimal financial structure, for an economy at different stages of development.
Building the Centre-right in Europe: impressions from a lifetime's experience [Audio]
Speaker(s): Wilfried Martens | Centre-right parties dominate at national and European levels. To what do they owe their success - even during this so-called 'crisis of capitalism'? Wilfried Martens is president of the European People's Party and former prime minister of Belgium. This lecture marks the release of his memoirs, I Struggle, I Overcome. Damian Chalmers is Professor of European Union Law based in the Law Department and the European Institute, LSE.
Thinking about Evidence and Risk [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor John Worrall | In this lunchtime series of lectures, a selection of LSE's academics from across the spectrum of the social sciences explain the latest thinking on how social scientists work to address the critical problems of the day. They survey the leading ideas and contributions made by their discipline, explain the types of problems that are addressed and the tools that are used, and explore the kinds of solutions proposed.
Too Big to Fail [Audio]
Speaker(s): Andrew Ross Sorkin | Andrew Ross Sorkin will take the audience behind the financial crisis and inside various secret meetings and never-before revealed conversations between regulators in Washington DC and London as well as on Wall Street. Sorkin will describe the reporting process of this painstakingly reported narrative; how he was able to gain access to the key players and how they provided him with hundreds of hundreds of pages of internal documents and notes that were the basis
The Reform of the International Financial System: a proposal with the lessons from the crisis [Audio
Speaker(s): José MarÃa Aznar | A crisis that has impoverished the world has shown the need for an enhanced rules-based framework for the international financial system. More transparency, better regulation, incentives and oversight and a more in depth understanding of the implications of increased financial interdependence in a globalized world are the basis for the reforms needed.
Managing Risk and Behaviour in Financial Markets [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Julia Black; Professor Charles Goodhart; Professor Michael Power; Dr Paul Woolley | The consequences of banks' risk taking behaviour will be felt by the public finances of many countries for at least another generation. Risk taking behaviour is the lifeblood of financial markets. How can, and should, it be managed? Julia Black is professor of law at LSE. Charles Goodhart is professor emeritus of banking and finance at LSE. Michael Power is professor of accounting at LSE. Pa
The Value of Nothing [Audio]
Speaker(s): Raj Patel | "Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing." Credit has crunched, debt has turned toxic, the gears of the world economy have ground to a halt. It's now clear that the market doesn't only get it wrong about sub-prime mortgages; it gets it wrong about everything. We need to ask again one of the most fundamental questions a society ever addresses: why do things cost what they do?
Uninhibited, Robust and Wide-Open: a free press for a new century [Audio]
Speaker(s): Lee Bollinger | Bollinger explores the meaning of freedom of the press in our globalised, internet-dominated era. Lee C. Bollinger became the nineteenth President of Columbia University on June 1, 2002. A prominent advocate of affirmative action, he played a leading role in the twin Supreme Court cases - Grutter v Bollinger and Gratz v Bollinger - that upheld and clarified the importance of diversity as a compelling justification for affirmative action in higher education. A leading
Delivering a Low Carbon London [Audio]
Speaker(s): Isabel Dedring | Isabel Dedring will discuss developing and implementing a vision for a low carbon London. Isabel Dedring is environment adviser to the Mayor of London. She has also been director of the policy unit at Transport for London.
Mind-Body Problems: Science, Fiction, and God [Audio]
Speaker(s): Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Professor Steven Pinker | What happens when a novelist and philosopher talks to a cognitive neuroscientist about faith, reason, fiction, and God? Listen in as Rebecca Newberger Goldstein and her husband Steven Pinker explore what Spinoza would say about Darwin, what role fiction should play in intellectual life, whether any of the arguments for the existence of God are any good, and other topics at the interface of literature, science, and philosophy.
Atheists On Religion [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Tim Crane, Professor AC Grayling | For the last 150 years or so European philosophers and sociologists have tended to regard religion as just one more pre-scientific myth and superstition that has had its day, and likely to wither on the vine of History. This view, the secularization thesis, seems today to be in poor shape. Not only does there appear to be no sign of withering, still less a clear path of scientific and rational progress, but religion seems to be reviving. C
Dignified Foreign Policy [Audio]
Speaker(s): Alexander Stubb | Alexander Stubb, Finland's Foreign Minister is a graduate of the LSE. He became Minister for Foreign Affairs in April 2008. Before that he served for four years as a member of the European Parliament.
How serious a threat does Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula represent to Yemen and the West? [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Fawaz Gerges | Fawaz A. Gerges is a Professor of Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He also holds the Emirates Chair of the Contemporary Middle East and is the Director of the Middle East Centre at LSE. Gerges is author of two recently acclaimed books: Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy (Harcourt Press, 2007), and The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge University Press, 2005). T
Research in the Humanities: The Very Idea [Audio]
Speaker(s): Dr Simon Glendinning | Simon Glendinning is reader in European philosophy at the European Institute, LSE, and director of the Forum for European Philosophy.
Literary Festival 2011 - New technologies and the Reinvention of the Author [Audio]
Speaker(s): Sam Leith, Lionel Shriver, Nigel Warburton | With rapid developments in communication and publication technologies, the book – as conventionally conceived – is no longer the only point of connection between writers and their audiences. New media cross many geographical borders with ease, creating potentially global readerships. New communication technologies empower audiences to answer back, dissolving the traditional borders between writers and readers. And with this, the bounda
"Introduction to Modeling and Simulation, Spring 2008"
" This course explores the basic concepts of computer modeling and simulation in science and engineering. We'll use techniques and software for simulation, data analysis and visualization. Continuum, mesoscale, atomistic and quantum methods are used to study fundamental and applied problems in physics, chemistry, materials science, mechanics, engineering, and biology. Examples drawn from the disciplines above are used to understand or characterize complex structures and materials, and complement
A Conversation with Sandra Day O'Connor, former Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court [Audio]
Speaker(s): Sandra Day O'Connor | Sandra Day O'Connor is an American jurist who was the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States. Justice O'Connor was appointed an Associate Justice by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, a position she held for 25 years until her retirement in 2006. Viewed as one of the most influential Justices to serve on the modern US Supreme Court, Justice O'Connor became the ""swing opinion"" in the often divided Court on which she sat in the later years o
A Shadow of Its Former Self? Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe's Education System [Audio]
Speaker(s): Peter Godwin | Peter Godwin is an award-winning foreign correspondent, author, documentary-maker and screen writer. After practicing human rights law in Zimbabwe, he became a foreign and war correspondent, and has reported from over 60 countries, including wars in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Somalia, Congo, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Kashmir and the last years of apartheid South Africa. He served as East European correspondent and Diplomatic correspondent
1.5.6 Velocity and acceleration as derivatives
Motion is vital to life, and to science. This unit will help you to understand why classical motion is probably the most fundamental part of physics. You will examine motion along a line and the ways in which such motion can be represented, through the use of graphs, equations and differential calculus.













