The objective of this course is to introduce large-scale atomistic modeling techniques and highlight its importance for solving problems in modern engineering sciences. We demonstrate how atomistic modeling can be used to understand how materials fail under extreme loading, involving unfolding of proteins and propagation of cracks.
This course was featured in an MIT Tech Talk article.

There has been much discussion in recent years, on this campus and elsewhere, about the death of the book. Digitization and various forms of electronic media, some critics say, are rendering the printed text as obsolete as the writing quill. In this subject, we will examine the claims for and against the demise of the book, but we will also supplement these arguments with an historical perspective they lack: we will examine texts, printing technologies, and reading communities from roughly 1450 to the present. We will begin with the theoretical and historical overviews of Walter Ong and Elizabeth Eisenstein, after which we will study specific cases such as English chapbooks, Inkan knotted and dyed strings, late nineteenth-century recording devices, and newspapers online today. We will also visit a rare book library and make a poster on a hand-set printing press.

This subject examines interactions across the Eurasian continent between Russians, Chinese, Mongolian nomads, and Turkic oasis dwellers during the last millennium and a half. As empires rose and fell, religions, trade, and war flowed back and forth continuously across this vast space. Today, the fall of the Soviet Union and China’s reforms have opened up new opportunities for cultural interaction.

We are now at an unprecedented point in the field of neuroscience: We can watch the human brain in action as it sees, thinks, decides, reads, and remembers. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is the only method that enables us to monitor local neural activity in the normal human brain in a noninvasive fashion and with good spatial resolution. A large number of far-reaching and fundamental questions about the human mind and brain can now be answered using straightforward applications of this technology. This is particularly true in the area of high-level vision, the study of how we interpret and use visual information including object recognition, mental imagery, visual attention, perceptual awareness, visually guided action, and visual memory.
The goals of this course are to help students become savvy and critical readers of the current neuroimaging literature, to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the technique, and to design their own cutting-edge, theoretically motivated studies. Students will read, present to the class, and critique recently published neuroimaging articles, as well as write detailed proposals for experiments of their own. Lectures will cover the theoretical background on some of the major areas in high-level vision, as well as an overview of what fMRI has taught us and can in future teach us about each of these topics. Lectures and discussions will also cover fMRI methods and experimental design. A prior course in statistics and at least one course in perception or cognition are required.

This team-taught multidisciplinary course provides information relevant to the conduct and interpretation of human brain mapping studies. It begins with in-depth coverage of the physics of image formation, mechanisms of image contrast, and the physiological basis for image signals. Parenchymal and cerebrovascular neuroanatomy and application of sophisticated structural analysis algorithms for segmentation and registration of functional data are discussed. Additional topics include: fMRI experimental design including block design, event related and exploratory data analysis methods, and building and applying statistical models for fMRI data; and human subject issues including informed consent, institutional review board requirements and safety in the high field environment.

Additional Faculty
Div Bolar
Dr. Bradford Dickerson
Dr. John Gabrieli
Dr. Doug Greve
Dr. Karl Helmer
Dr. Dara Manoach
Dr. Jason Mitchell
Dr. Christopher Moore
Dr. Vitaly Napadow
Dr. Jon Polimeni
Dr. Sonia Pujol
Dr. Bruce Rosen
Dr. Mert Sabuncu
Dr. David Salat
Dr. Robert Savoy
Dr. David Somers
Dr. A. Gregory Sorensen
Dr. Christina Triantafyllou
Dr. Wim Vanduffel
Dr. Mark Vangel
Dr. Lawrence Wald
Dr. Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli
Dr. Anastasia Yendiki

This is an advanced undergraduate course dealing with calculus in one complex variable with geometric emphasis. Since the course Analysis I (18.100B) is a prerequisite, topological notions like compactness, connectedness, and related properties of continuous functions are taken for granted.
This course offers biweekly problem sets with solutions, two term tests and a final exam, all with solutions.

This course covers fundamentals of thermodynamics, chemistry, and transport applied to energy systems. Topics include analysis of energy conversion and storage in thermal, mechanical, chemical, and electrochemical processes in power and transportation systems, with emphasis on efficiency, performance, and environmental impact. Applications include fuel reforming and alternative fuels, hydrogen, fuel cells and batteries, combustion, catalysis, combined and hybrid power cycles using fossil, nuclear and renewable resources.

Fundamentals of Biology focuses on the basic principles of biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, and recombinant DNA. These principles are necessary to understanding the basic mechanisms of life and anchor the biological knowledge that is required to understand many of the challenges in everyday life, from human health and disease to loss of biodiversity and environmental quality.
Course Format

This course has been designed for independent study. It consists of four units, one for each topic. The units can be used individually or in combination. The materials for each unit include:

Lecture Videos by MIT faculty.
Learning activities, including Interactive Concept Quizzes, designed to reinforce main concepts from lectures.
Problem Sets you do on your own and check your answers against the Solutions when you’re done.
Problem Solving Video help sessions taught by experienced MIT Teaching Assistants.
Lists of important Terms and Definitions.
Suggested Topics and Links for further study.
Exams with Solution Keys.

Content Development

Eric Lander
Robert Weinberg
Tyler Jacks
Hazel Sive
Graham Walker
Sallie Chisholm
Dr. Michelle Mischke

This class covers the history of 20th century art and design from the perspective of the technologist. Methods for visual analysis, oral critique, and digital expression are introduced. Class projects this term use the OLPC XO (One Laptop Per Child) laptop, Csound and Python software.

This design-based subject provides a first course in energy and thermo-sciences with applications to sustainable energy-efficient architecture and building technology. No previous experience with subject matter is assumed. After taking this subject, students will understand introductory thermodynamics and heat transfer, know the leading order factors in building energy use, and have creatively employed their understanding of energy fundamentals and knowledge of building energy use in innovative building design projects. This year, the focus will be on design projects that will complement the new NSTAR/MIT campus efficiency program.

This course focuses on the fundamentals of structure, energetics, and bonding that underpin materials science. It is the introductory lecture class for sophomore students in Materials Science and Engineering, taken with 3.014 and 3.016 to create a unified introduction to the subject. Topics include: an introduction to thermodynamic functions and laws governing equilibrium properties, relating macroscopic behavior to atomistic and molecular models of materials; the role of electronic bonding in determining the energy, structure, and stability of materials; quantum mechanical descriptions of interacting electrons and atoms; materials phenomena, such as heat capacities, phase transformations, and multiphase equilibria to chemical reactions and magnetism; symmetry properties of molecules and solids; structure of complex, disordered, and amorphous materials; tensors and constraints on physical properties imposed by symmetry; and determination of structure through diffraction. Real-world applications include engineered alloys, electronic and magnetic materials, ionic and network solids, polymers, and biomaterials.
This course is a core subject in MIT’s undergraduate Energy Studies Minor. This Institute-wide program complements the deep expertise obtained in any major with a broad understanding of the interlinked realms of science, technology, and social sciences as they relate to energy and associated environmental challenges.

This class introduces students to the rudiments of Western music through oral, aural, and written practice utilizing rhythm, melody, intervals, scales, chords, and musical notation. The approach is based upon the inclusive Kodály philosophy of music education. Individual skills are addressed through a variety of means, emphasizing singing and keyboard practice in the required piano labs.

This course explores the fundamentals of optical and optoelectronic phenomena and devices based on classical and quantum properties of radiation and matter culminating in lasers and applications. Fundamentals include: Maxwell’s electromagnetic waves, resonators and beams, classical ray optics and optical systems, quantum theory of light, matter and its interaction, classical and quantum noise, lasers and laser dynamics, continuous wave and short pulse generation, light modulation; examples from integrated optics and semiconductor optoelectronics and nonlinear optics.

Fundamentals of photoelectric conversion: charge excitation, conduction, separation, and collection. Lectures cover commercial and emerging photovoltaic technologies and cross-cutting themes, including conversion efficiencies, loss mechanisms, characterization, manufacturing, systems, reliability, life-cycle analysis, risk analysis, and technology evolution in the context of markets, policies, society, and environment.
This course is one of many OCW Energy Courses, and it is an elective subject in MIT’s undergraduate Energy Studies Minor. This Institute–wide program complements the deep expertise obtained in any major with a broad understanding of the interlinked realms of science, technology, and social sciences as they relate to energy and associated environmental challenges.

This is a course on the fundamentals of probability geared towards first or second-year graduate students who are interested in a rigorous development of the subject. The course covers sample space, random variables, expectations, transforms, Bernoulli and Poisson processes, finite Markov chains, and limit theorems. There is also a number of additional topics such as: language, terminology, and key results from measure theory; interchange of limits and expectations; multivariate Gaussian distributions; and deeper understanding of conditional distributions and expectations.

This course offers a comprehensive introduction to the field of program analysis. It covers some of the major forms of program analysis including Type Checking, Abstract Interpretation and Model Checking. For each of these, the course covers the underlying theories as well as modern techniques and applications.

General introduction to systems engineering using both the classical V-model and the new Meta approach. Topics include stakeholder analysis, requirements definition, system architecture and concept generation, trade-space exploration and concept selection, design definition and optimization, system integration and interface management, system safety, verification and validation, and commissioning and operations. Discusses the trade-offs between performance, lifecycle cost and system operability. Readings based on systems engineering standards and papers. Students apply the concepts of systems engineering to a cyber-electro-mechanical system, which is subsequently entered into a design competition.
Students will prepare a PDR (Preliminary Design Review)-level design intended for the Cansat Competition.This year’s class will be taught in the form of a Small-Private-Online-Course (SPOC) and offered simultaneously to students at MIT under number 16.842 and Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) as ENG-421.

Furniture making is in many ways like bridge building, connections holding posts apart with spans to support a deck. Many architects have tried their hand at furniture design, Wright, Mies Van Der Rohe, Aalto, Saarinen, Le Corbusier, and Gerhy.
We will review the history of furniture making in America with a visit to the Decorative Arts Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and have Cambridge artist/craftsman Mitch Ryerson show us his work and talk about design process. Students will learn traditional woodworking techniques beginning with the use of hand tools, power tools and finally woodworking machines.
Students will build a single piece of furniture of an original design that must support someone weighing 185 lbs. sitting on it 12 inches off the ground made primarily of wood. Students should expect to spend approximately 80 hours in the shop outside of class time.
Preregistered architecture students will get first priority but first meeting attendance is mandatory. Twelve student maximum, no exceptions.

This is a freshman advising seminar. The professor of a FAS is the first year advisor to the (no more than 8) students in the seminar.
The use of Global Positioning System (GPS) in a wide variety of applications has exploded in the last few years. In this seminar we explore how positions on the Earth were determined before GPS; how GPS itself works and the range of applications in which GPS is now a critical element. This seminar is followed by a UROP research project in the spring semester where results from precise GPS measurements will be analyzed and displayed on the Web.

This course provides practical instruction in the design and analysis of non-digital games. Students cover the texts, tools, references and historical context to analyze and compare game designs across a variety of genres, including sports, game shows, games of chance, card games, schoolyard games, board games, and role–playing games. In teams, students design, develop, and thoroughly test their original games to understand the interaction and evolution of game rules. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.