Friday Special Lecture for High School and University Students_2021
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Content List
Summer Semester Program 2021
What is Caste? A Reappraisal from Indian Historical Anthropology [JP]
Part of the charm of India lies in its overwhelming diversity, and in fact, caste has functioned as a social institution that contributes to maintaining this diversity. In today's society, it is important to value both equality and diversity among people — but how can this be achieved? We will explore some hints for answering this question through an examination of India's history and society. …
Synthetic Biology: Creating Life from Molecules [JP]
What are the differences between living and non-living things? There are many differences: living organisms move, increase in number, have DNA, evolve, and so on. Current technology allows us to create non-living things that have characteristics possessed only by living things. In this lecture, I will present what has been created and what has not been created, and what can be learned about life …
What Is Democracy? From a Historical Perspective [JP]
We often hear conflicting and confusing arguments about democracy. Let's discuss them by following the history of democracy. NOTE: - This lecture was conducted only in Japanese.
The Korean boom in Japanese entertainment during wartime [JP]
During the wartime, Japanese society suffered from a suffocating atmosphere of military rule. In addition, the Korean people were denied their own culture and forced to assimilate. Surprisingly, however, Korean songs, dances, and plays became popular in the Japanese entertainment industry during this period. Why did this happen? We will look at the relationship between this wartime Korean boom an…
Swarms of living things and swimming of microorganisms from a physical point of view［JP］
In the world of microorganisms, which are 1/100 to 1/1000 of a millimeter in size, our common sense does not apply. For microorganisms, water behaves like a very viscous fluid and they feel like swimming in honey. While even a single microorganism itself is very interesting, what happens when many of them are gathered together? I will introduce the "physics of active matter," which tries to find …
Chemistry to create, see, and use nanometer pores【JP】
We chemists assemble molecules and crystals in the world of the nanometer, which is one-billionth the size of a meter. If a molecule or crystal has a pore, smaller molecules and ions can move in and out. In this talk, I will explain how to see the nanoworld from the metric world and the nanomaterials that are active in our environment. I will then introduce the frontiers of nanochemistry. NOTE…
Reading Kenzaburo Oe's First Work "Kimyo na Shigoto (The Strange Work)" [JP]
In this lecture Dr. Katsunao Murakami discusses what is at the heart of Oe's literature through reading and comprehending his first work "Kimyo na Shigoto (The Strange Work)," which was published while he was a student at the University of Tokyo in 1957. NOTE: - This lecture was conducted only in Japanese.
Aesthetics of Digital Games [JP]
Digital games, the most popular form of play in modern times, are not only important as entertainment and industrial products, they are also the best research material for understanding human aesthetics - perception, imagination, reaction and emotion. Many of our viewers may usually refrain from playing games because they interfere with studying, but in this course let's think about games to full…
Discovering "good definitions" can change the world［JP］
Mathematics gives us an objective and rigorous way to express various concepts that we use casually. What is "similar"? What is "random"? What is "beautiful"? What is "big"? There is no single answer to any of these questions. I will show how the discovery of "good definitions" depending on the situation has changed the world of mathematics and modern society. NOTE: - This lecture was conduct…
Audio-Only
Listening
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Sociology of Inequality: Thinking about Society through Data［JP］
In recent years, there has been a great deal of controversy around the world about social inequality and the redistribution of wealth. What is social inequality? Why does it matter? How is it measured? This lecture will introduce the concept of social stratification and mobility from a sociological perspective. We will consider social inequality and its solutions through familiar themes such as g…
Audio-Only
Listening
Community
Only
Winter Semester Program 2021
Do animals have minds? [JP]
Do the cats, crows, and lizards we are familiar with have minds? You know you have your own mind, but do others have minds? In principle, it is impossible to know whether animals have minds. However, we can speculate whether they are likely to have minds. I present studies that attempt to know the minds of animals. NOTE: - This lecture was conducted only in Japanese. ★Your sharing on SNS may…
Present and future of the search for a second Earth［JP］
The first "exoplanet" orbiting a star other than the Sun was discovered in 1995. Just over 20 years later, more than 4,400 exoplanets have been discovered. These include "habitable planets" that may be capable of holding liquid water on their surfaces. Are there any life-bearing planets in the universe that we could call a second Earth? I will introduce the current and future prospects for …
Data-Based Reality and Future Potential of Japan's Forests [JP]
Japan is one of the most forested countries in the world, with 68.5% of its land area covered by forest. The University of Tokyo owns field practice forests in seven prefectures, covering a total area of 0.1% of the national land area and 99% of the University of Tokyo campus area. In this lecture, I will clarify the current situation of Japan's forests based on data, and then consider how we sho…
What determines the shape of biological cells? Answers from physics [JP]
Cells, the smallest units of organisms, have shapes appropriate to their functions. For example, red blood cells have a concave disc shape, and the folds on the inner wall of the small intestine have an elongated cylindrical shape. How are these cell shapes determined? We have solved the mechanical laws that determine the shapes of cells by mimicking and building cells using only a few types of m…
Looking at world history from Central Eurasia [JP]
Have you ever heard the term 'Central Eurasia'? The Eurasian continent was the main stage of world history before the modern era, and the people of its inland regions, or Central Eurasia, were the ones who connected the different regions and moved world history beyond the confines of the regions. In this talk, we would like to shed light on the region of Central Eurasia, focusing on the nomadic p…
Introduction to beautiful mathematics - Mysteries of the singular point [JP]
In the 17th century, the mathematician and philosopher Descartes introduced coordinates, which allow us to represent different figures with equations. When we think of them in terms of complex numbers, a more beautiful world opens up. Figures that can be represented by equations sometimes have a point, like a black hole in space, called a singular point. Let's explore such singular points and the…
From AIDS crisis to COVID-19 pandemic [JP]
The lecture attempts to offer a perspective to understand the contemporary COVID-19 pandemic by reflecting on the AIDS epidemic in the United States in the 1980s. It focuses on the way public health crises reproduce existing social inequalities as they provide an excuse for the very reproduction, and asks how they threaten the lives of minorities. NOTE: - This lecture was conducted only in Ja…
Scientific understanding of climate change --- Deciphering the latest IPCC report [JP]
In August 2021, the latest report from Working Group I of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was released. This report summarizes and assesses findings from studies conducted around the world to understand past climate change based on natural science and to predict future climate change based on scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions etc. It provides the basis for …
Do you usually read the 'voice' of the text?[JP]
When you read a text, your first concern is probably 'what' is written. However, you are also reading the 'voice' of the text without realizing it. In this lecture we will look at how the 'voice' of a text is expressed, what it means to hear the 'voice' of a text, and whether the way voices are created differs between English and Japanese. NOTE: - This lecture was conducted only in Japanese. …
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