Astr 301G: Revolutionary Ideas in Science
Instructor: Rene Walterbos
(rwalterb@nmsu.edu, 505-646-5990)
Teaching Assistant: Malynda Chizek
Class times: MoWeFr 12:30 -1:20 pm,
Hardman 216
And the TA's home page for this course: Malynda's 301G site
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Current
Assignments
Read Chapter 1 text book
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A wonderful resource, just click every time you visit here:
Astronomy Picture of the Day
SPECIAL EVENT: ECLIPSE OF THE MOON, AUGUST 28, BEST TIME TO WATCH
2:00-3:15 AM
Results of student survey: what interests you?
LECTURE NOTES AND ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
If you find interesting related links, please send me
an email
Topic 1: The
scientific process. The
Copernican revolution.
Class readings
Required: Trefil and Hazen: Chapter 1, 2
Lecture notes: section1.
Web-based resources.
This contains a comprehensive
summary of the progression of ideas from antiquated astronomers
(and others) to Einstein. This is more information than you need, but
the sections on Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo are excellent.
This gives an
excellent timeline of the sequence of events that led up to the
eventual acceptance of the heliocentric model of the universe.
A visionary monk who suffered a worst fate than Galileo was Giordano
Bruno, who was burned at the stake by the Inquisition in 1600. Bruno
had many revolutionary ideas about the Universe, which were mostly
correct. .Bruno.
Everything
you ever wanted to know (and more!) about Galileo.
Link to NASA's Galileo
mission to Jupiter.
There is an excellent book by the historion Owen Gingerich, called "The
book nobody read", subtitled "Chasing the revolutions of Nicolaus
Copernicus". It describes a search to all the first and second editions
of Copernicus's book describing the heliocentric model (De
Revolutionibus), to find out who actually read the book, by looking for
and trying to identify all the annotations that were made by the
owners. The book gives a fascinating account of the times of Copernicus
and the period following that.
Topic 2a: The Earth's age.
Class readings
Required: Trefil and Hazen: Chapter 15,16,17
(relevant sections)
Lecture notes: section2.
Internet Resources
Extensive web site with information origins, evolution, age of earth,
etc:origins
Before Hutton,
Thomas Burnet and his "Sacred Theory of the Earth" was the most
popular geologic work of the 17th century.
This link
provides concluding remarks from Lyell's influential "Principles of
Geology".
Radioactive dating:
dating,then
click on "click here"
Brief Biographies for two of the main players in advocating the old
Earth:
James Hutton
Charles
Lyell.
Topic 2b: Plate Tectonics
Class readings
Required:
Trefil and Hazen: Chapter 17 (all)
This
Dynamic Earth, a publication of the USGS.
Article
on Martian magnetic stripes
Internet Resources
A capsule history of plate tectonics with some
nice graphics can be found at the Moving Mountains
page.
See a map
of the most recent earthquakes in Southern California. Updated
constantly, but your web browser must be Java enabled (if you
just see a blank box, even after a minute or two, then you don't
have Java). Try one of the other sites below.
The UCSB site Understanding
Earthquakes has a lot of interesting information.
Check out this web-site that shows how the
continents would look like 250 million years from now
Also see some cool animations showing
Here is a group that thinks they can stop plate
tectonics from occurring! [Thanks to one of your classmates for
providing the address for this web site.]
Topic 3a: Biological
Evolution
Reading: Trefil and Hazen: Chapter 25, sections of Chapters 22,23,24,
focus on topics discussed in class
Lecture notes for both evolution and impaces: section3.
For web pages, I refer to to the origins link
already
referred to above. Dig a little bit around in the various categories,
and
you will find info on addressing the most common 5 criticisms against
evolution,the life of Darwin, including the entire text of his book,
and many other interesting discussions. Be guided by what we discussed
in class.
Topic 3b: Comet
impacts and mass extinctions.
Class readings: Trefil and Hazen: Chapter 16, on meteoroids,
asteroids,comets, Chapter 25 on mass extinctions
"What Killed the Dinosaurs?" page at UC Berkeley.
Dinosaur
Extinction Page
Other Internet Resources
K-T impact vs Volcano Greenhouse hypothesis:
This site provides a very balanced view of the debate:
Walking with Dinosaurs
This site is pro impact but points out its weaknesses too:
DinosaurExtinction: Giant Meteor Impact
This site is definitely pro Volcano hypothesis:
Dinosaur Volcano Greenhouse Extinction
Comets, Asteroids, and Impact Hazards
An excellent introduction to
Comets and
Asteroids
NASA has a very informative page on impact hazards
Another site that talks about the probability of
collisions
with Earth
Check out "Badastronomy" reviews of
"Armageddon"and "Deep Impact"
Topic 4: Relativity
Reading: Trefil and Hazen: Chapter 7, sections of Ch 6 and 14, focus on
topics discussed in class
Lecture notes: section4.
A search on Google will give you lots of web pages. Here is just one
example spacetimewrinkles
Here are several other useful links:
A basis overview of relativity at Overview
A little math at: a bit
on
the mathematics of relativity
A descriptive essay on relativity at Essay
And some fun and silliness at Relativity in
words of four letters, or less.
Wikipedia and science.howstuffworks.com/relativity.htm both had
descriptive articles on relativity as well.
Topic 5: The Expanding
Universe.
Required:Trefil and Hazen: Chapter 15
(all)
Lecture notes: section5.
Steady State Universe:(Short descriptions)
A nice brief introduction to
the steady state cosmology
A good introduction to
cosmology. It also includes a brief discussion of the steady state
model.
A general discussion of
the steady state theory
Expansion of the Universe and Hubble Law:
Here's a nice description of
redshift and the
expanding universe
A simple and nice
animation showing the expansion of the universe
This page includes a great description of current
cosmology
debates,
including the Great Debate of 1920 as well as modern debates.
Penzias and Wilson's
discovery of cosmic background radiation