How can MIT be so backward? This lecture is completely unnecessary. I'm sure the students can read. Lectures are an antiquated educational form to begin with, whose content few will remember shortly after hearing it. This is true even for a modern NOVA type video documentary on this subject in which viewers can at least see the illustrations and photos being referred to. Also, in a NOVA type documentary the viewers would not be distracted by the professor leaning over while speaking, to adjust the computer slide show. A video documentary can be viewed many times by many different classes and even by a single individual at 2:00 a.m. and there are already quite a few available on the history of the Atomic Theory of Matter with visually appealing actors and precise diction. Why re-invent the wheel? This lecture isn't even in the same league as a NOVA video. Certainly there are things that make this lecture memorable for me, but the professor is only demonstrating her own memory recall and the students are passive spectators. I give her a C for content, a D for presentation and an A+ for the sleeveless top.

I found Professor Ceyer's presentation interesting and engaging, and I look forward to watching the rest of this series. True, it would have been nice to have seen the slides, but it took all of about four seconds to look up "Scanning Tunneling Microscope" on Wikipedia and to see similar pictures to the ones that she was apparently describing.

For those of us who grew up without the benefit of the funds to continue our educations, or who chose to work when the opportunity for education finally arose, these video lectures are greatly appreciated. This project is an incredibly generous undertaking, and it saddens me to see that this generosity is met with ill will and sexual harassment in the only other comment posted to this lecture.

I am very greatful for this. Yeah I have books, but it nice to listen to a women talk about this.