A series of “From the vault” videos is now available on OU’s Janux platform and at the Janux site on YouTube. These short videos, filmed on location by NextThought in the OU History of Science Collections, show rare treasures for a given topic along with a concisely-worded comment or story. Think of them as behind-the-scenes moments in a tour of the rare book vaults. Most are only 5-10 minutes long. They are not recorded lectures; rather than offering comprehensive information about a subject, they are designed to appeal to the imagination, to awaken interest in the history of science by conveying something of the physical presence of the rare books themselves. For this reason, they may be useful as auxiliary instructional resources for other courses across the various natural sciences including physics, astronomy, medicine, biology, geology, meteorology, chemistry, mathematics and engineering, as well as in humanities disciplines such as history, art, literature and the history of science.
To find the videos on YouTube, go to the Janux section (where videos from many courses are posted) and find the History of Science Online playlist. (Update: the videos are temporarily down now; I’ll remove this notice and update the links when they reappear. For now, you’ll have to watch them through signing up for Janux as explained below.)
To access the videos on the Janux platform, go to janux.ou.edu, and look in the Archive section for the History of Science to the Age of Newton course (HSCI 3013). As noted here previously, the course was offered in the 2014 spring semester, but the videos are still accessible to anyone by registering for the free version of the course. (The course icon, “Boldly go…,” may help you spot it quickly.) Within the course in the Janux platform, click the Lessons tab to view course content arranged week by week. The outline below will help you quickly find the videos of interest to you.
Have an iPad? A Janux app
makes accessing the videos a breeze.
The numbers in the outline below are discontinuous; only the “From the Vault” videos (FTV) for each weekly unit are included. Not listed below (but equally accessible) are companion videos, filmed in a studio setting, which for each week’s topic invite students to consider what they know of the cultural context (“Starting Assumptions”) and to engage thought-provoking points of view (“Interpretations”).
- Week 1, Exploring the Past
- 1.1 Orientation
- 1.3 Stonehenge (17:30 mins)
- 1.4 Shape of the Earth (9:08 mins)
- Week 2, Origins of Ancient Astronomy
- 2.2 Astronomy in Ancient Mesopotamia (4:31 mins)
- 2.2 Astronomy in Ancient Mesopotamia
- Week 3, Science in Ancient Egypt and the Aegean
- 3.2 Ancient Egyptian science (3:45 mins)
- 3.3 Presocratic Natural Philosophy (2:35 mins)
- 3.2 Ancient Egyptian science
- Week 4, Ancient Greek science
- 4.2 Pythagoras and Plato (5:03 mins)
- 4.3 Aristotle (3:58 mins)
- 4.2 Pythagoras and Plato
- Week 5, Hellenistic science
- 5.2 Hellenistic mathematical sciences (4:01 mins)
- 5.3 Hellenistic medicine (2:24 mins)
- 5.2 Hellenistic mathematical sciences
- Week 6, Roman science
- 6.2 Early Roman science (7:42 mins)
- 6.3 Later Roman science (9:55 mins)
- 6.2 Early Roman science
- Week 7, Islamic and Early Medieval science
- 7.2 Islamic science (21:15 mins)
- 7.3 Early Medieval science (5:04 mins)
- 7.2 Islamic science
- Week 8, 14th-century science
- 8.2 14th-century science (4:05 mins)
- 8.3 Theories of the Earth (12:14 mins)
- 8.2 14th-century science
- Week 9, 15th-century science
- 9.2 The Printing Revolution (17:01 mins)
- 9.3 Science and Art from Leonardo to Galileo (4:05 mins)
- 9.2 The Printing Revolution
- Week 10, 16th-century Life sciences
- 10.2 16th-century Medicine (7:13 mins)
- 10.3 16th-century Natural History (9:23 mins)
- 10.2 16th-century Medicine
- Week 11, 16th-century Astronomy
- 11.2 Astronomy before Copernicus (see Dive Deeper instructions)
- 11.2 Astronomy after Copernicus (see Dive Deeper instructions)
- Week 12, Science in Asia
- 12.2 Science in Pre-modern Asia (4:26 mins)
- 12.3 European and Chinese collaboration in the age of Galileo (5:24 mins)
- 12.2 Science in Pre-modern Asia
- Week 13, Galileo
- 13.2 Galileo’s works (9:06 mins)
- 13.3 The Galileo Affair (9:30 mins)
- 13.2 Galileo’s works
- Week 14, 17th-century science
- 14.2 Competing paradigms (FTV not yet available)
- 14.3 The Meaning of science (FTV not yet available)
- Week 15, Newton
- 15.2 Newton’s works (FTV not yet available)
- 15.3 Janus faces (FTV not yet available)
In addition to the above “From the Vault” videos for each week, there are also videos for “Starting Assumptions” and “Interpretations.” Watch these on Janux at YouTube or on the Janux platform.
, hangs above an easy chair in the Researcher Lounge of the History of Science Collections. Jobs saw that the Mac would do for computers what alphabetic writing did for ancient civilization. The Rosetta Stone displays the same text in three bands of writing, beginning with Egyptian hieroglyphics and the more-easily read demotic script. Both hieroglyphics and demotic, like Mesopotamian cuneiform languages, were written in syllabaries comprised of several hundred characters. Syllabaries were the scripts of highly trained scribes, mastered only through a long period of preparation. As a result, scribes were an elite culture, and their work was subject to the control of large, highly-organized states in Egypt and Mesopotamia. In contrast, the lowest band is Greek, an alphabetic script. With only a couple dozen characters, Greek could be mastered with determination by anyone. The resulting impact of Greek culture upon the world, made possible by literacy, signified to Jobs what the Mac and the 20th-century Information Revolution were all about. 
