COURSE OUTLINE
This course is designed to be a general introduction to the
scientific method of understanding the universe and our place
within it. Face the fact that this class, by the very nature of its
content, will introduce an astronomical perspective to your life.
Human beings have looked to stars from the beginning, and have always
found (or wanted to find) some meaningful connection between their
daily lives and the universe. Out of a time span of tens of thousands
of years, it has been only in the last 100 years that we have begun to
really grasp at the unfathomable expanse of time and space: several
hundred billion galaxies spread out over billions of light years of
space. Each galaxy is an "oasis" in space-- each an ecosystem in
which hundreds of billions of stars are born, live out their lives, grow
old, and die (sometimes quite catastrophically). The life cycles of
the stars is our story, for our Sun is one of these stars, born from a
previous generation of stars-- a link in a chain for a next generation
to come in our galaxy, the Milky Way. Something like 90% of all stars
have planetary systems... and life as we know it? This is our current
picture of our place in and connection with the universe. It bares
little resemblance to what our ancestors believed. How will our
ancestors view themselves?
In this context, we will study the details of the objects in the
universe and how they evolve. Most important are the concepts of
gravity and energy generation. Each star is a delicate balancing act
between the two. Though the details may be many and often times
numerous, what is desired is that you, the student, walk away with the
big picture of the lives of stars, the structure of galaxies, the
ecosystem of the universe, and its history and fate. We will NOT be
spending much time on the planets of our solar system, nor will we be
studying constellations in lecture.
The material will be broken into three main "areas". We will start
with the big picture and then narrow ourselves down to our place in
the universe. A rough outline of topics is:
-
The Universe: size and structure, objects therein and their relative
sizes; the early universe, the big bang, primordial nucleosynthesis,
formation of atoms (and the flash of light that results!), the dark
ages, formation of structures (relighting the universe), evolution to
the present, the accelerating universe; the matter budget, fate of the
universe
-
Galaxies: types, sizes, overall structures, component structures;
groups of galaxies, clusters of galaxies, superclusters of galaxies,
cosmic "voids", the cosmic web
-
Stars: gaseous nebulae, birth, youth, middle age, death; supernovae,
"planetary" nebulae, black holes, white dwarfs, neutron stars (mass is
everything)
COURSE SPECIFICS