Each week we feature courses on OCW that relate to current events, highlight accomplishments of MIT's extraordinary teaching and research, or are just plain interesting.

November 5, 2010: Form-Finding and Structural Optimization: Gaudi Workshop

Explore three-dimensional problems in the static equilibrium of structural systems under a variety of loads in Form-Finding and Structural Optimization: Gaudi Workshop. Be sure to check out the Projects section for two examples of student work.

October 28, 2010: Teaching Real-World Programming

Professors Charles E. Leiserson and Saman Amarasinghe, who co-teach Performance Engineering of Software Systems believe that undergraduates should be taught to write clear code, not just running code. To that end, they have recruited Boston-area senior programmers to review the students' work.

October 25, 2010: Hitting the Wall

Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology student Benjamin Rapoport is attacking the wall many long-distance runners hit mid-race. Rapoport has developed a model for figuring pace and carb consumption to help runners make it to the end of a race.

Interested in more of the science behind sports? Check out Chemistry of Sports.

October 21, 2010: Infrastructure in Crisis: Energy and Security Challenges

In Infrastructure in Crisis: Energy and Security Challenges students explore how an energy crisis can be an opportunity for making fundamental changes to improve infrastructure. Be sure to look at the sample student papers in the Projects section.

October 18, 2010: Benoît Mandelbrot, Mathematician, Dies at 85

Benoît Mandelbrot, the mathematician who coined the term "fractal" to refer to mathematical shapes that mimic irregularies found in nature, has died at age 85.

Fractals are among the ranging concepts covered in Gödel, Escher, Bach, a course that "climbs mental mountains and crosses intellectual oceans."

October 13, 2010: MIT Economist Peter Diamond Wins Nobel Prize

Peter Diamond has won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. He shares the award with Dale Mortensen of Northwestern University and Christopher Pissarides of the London School of Economics. The Nobel Foundation cited these scholars "for their analysis of markets with search frictions."

Diamond has published two courses on OCW: Microeconomic Theory III and Public Economics II.

October 7, 2010: Thermal Hydraulics in Power Technology

MIT's Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems (CANES) is part of a team that recently won a major Department of Energy grant to run an Innovation Hub for Nuclear Energy Modeling and Simulation. Courses such as 22.313J Thermal Hydraulics in Power Technology provide a foundation to predict the safety and performance of reactors under varied conditions.

October 4, 2010: Transportation Courses

Transportation@MIT is a coordinated effort to address one of civilization's most pressing challenges: the environmental impact of the world's ever-increasing demand for transportation. Our new Transportation course list provides links to courses on OCW that Transportation@MIT have identified for those interested in transportation-related issues.

October 1, 2010: Subra Suresh to Head National Science Foundation

Subra Suresh, dean of the School of Engineering, has been unanimously confirmed by the US Senate as the next director of the National Science Foundation.

Suresh has dedicated more than three decades of service to MIT as a leader, a researcher, and a teacher. His course, Fracture and Fatigue is available on OCW.

September 28, 2010: Erroneous Reports of Possible OCW Paywall Appear in News Media

Recent news articles have suggested that MIT is considering placing OCW behind a paywall. The content on OCW will continue to be free and available online, as it has always been. Read the rest of the statement from OCW.

September 23, 2010: Letter from the Executive Director

Enhancing OCW content and connecting a community of learners: read all about it in the newest letter from executive director Cecilia d'Oliveira.

September 20, 2010: MIT OpenCourseWare Teams Up with OpenStudy

OCW and OpenStudy are teaming up to help OCW users connect and study together. OpenStudy groups support real-time interaction between students and independent learners from around the world. OpenStudy members can answer one another's questions, work collaboratively on problem sets and connect with learners who share interests.

September 14, 2010: Aerospace Biomedical and Life Support Engineering

A new study describes a major risk for astronauts with wide hands after working or training in space suit gloves: their fingernails may fall off. A co-author of the study, MIT's Dava Newman, tackles the physiological challenges presented by working in space in Aerospace Biomedical and Life Support Engineering.

September 9, 2010: The Ancient City

Investigate the relationship between urban architecture and the political, social and economic role of cities in the Greek and Roman world in The Ancient City.

September 1, 2010: Chinese I Study Group

Studying Chinese I on OCW? No need to study alone. Just select "Join a Study Group" to find other online scholars.

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