WHAT:

This project will offer a dubbed version in Tamil of the famous Physics educational program series called 'MECHANICAL UNIVERSE & BEYOND'.  This consists of 52 video lessons of half hour each created by US based Annenberg Foundation in association with Corporation
for Public Broadcasting (CPB), California Institute of Technology (CIT) and Consortium of Community colleges and Cambridge University. The dubbed version will be freely given to Tamil students in the Tamil medium schools in the state of Tamilnadu and elsewhere world wide in all Tamil speaking countries.

WHY:

This Physics educational series to students was conceived and completed by Annenberg Foundation in 1987 with multi million dollar funding to enhance basic science education in USA. These lessons were actually video taped live in the California Institute of Technology
classrooms as taught by Prof. David L. Goldstein, the project director for this series commissioned by Annenberg Foundation the sponsor. Later this was well received not only within USA but also throughout the world.

This excellent series on classical mechanics and quantum physics has been in distribution for a number of years and as such has been sold and translated into other languages. In the last two years Mainland China has bought this series, dubbed into Chinese and adopted this series to teach Physics in their schools and 25 universities within China nationwide. This series has been sold in many countries including USA, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Israel, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, South America, and U.K.

In Canada this series has been sold to most provincial departments of education, and many universities and colleges. The departments of education as key curriculum resources for physics instruction have recommended the series.

This series is the ultimate teaching tool for what can be a very difficult subject to comprehend. The Mechanical Universe has brought a clear understanding of physics to millions of students around the world.

If this series can be replicated with a Tamil version, the quality of science teaching in Tamilnadu schools can be improved significantly. This is equivalent to bringing all the Tamil students in Tamilnadu to learn physics at California institute of technology. Physics is an important component of the basic sciences. This physics series cannot only teach classical
physics but also quantum mechanics with all its mathematical underpinnings through calculus. It is like teaching mathematics along with physics. By implementing this project the Physics teaching standards of Tamilnadu schools can be instantly raised to international standards at the least cost.

Jet propulsion laboratory of California is the graphics provider for this series and Cambridge University is the text provider. This series comes with a student guide, teacher guide and a text to back the instructional video set.

This series has been conceived, designed, and created by experts in physics teaching, distance education experts, and field tested extensively with great success. Physics never gets outdated and plays an important role for any nation to reach its heights.