FOX Network's broadcast of Cosmos: Possible Worlds began with the two episodes Tuesday 22 September, 8 PM. We will focus on the first hour, "Ladder to the Stars", which ends with the Starshot project. (The transition to the second episode was not apparent.)
The makers of this series have produced is a study guide for teachers. Find it HERE (click the link for it near the bottom of the page.)
Episode 1, Ladder to the Stars
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But our century’s revelations of unthinkable largeness and unimaginable smallness, of abysmal stretches of geological time when we were nothing, of supernumerary galaxies and indeterminate subatomic behavior, of a kind of mad mathematical violence at the heart of matter have scorched us deeper than we know. (John Updike, "Books: Evolution Be Praised," The New Yorker, 30/12/1985)
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Assignment: Now that series has begun, the primary homework assignment each week will be as follows:
Watch the episode, and record your questions and comments, especially including concepts that you want to discuss and learn more about in class. It will help me to prepare better for class if you to submit your questions ahead of time. Use the form at the bottom of this any page at Discuss Cosmos Possible Worlds.
For Monday 28 September, the episode under discussion is Episode 1: Ladder to the Stars.
Your Questions and Comments for Discussion
Your questions and comments will appear here.
First, here's a little puzzle for you. How can you make a single browser bookmark to our class meetings? Solve this puzzle, and you can simply select that bookmark every time you want to go to class.
1) Do we know when/how our ancestors started paying attention to the stars and planets? Certainly, back then it was easier to see what's up there. Did each civilization map out the nighttime skies in some fashion? Did they mention that (somehow) in the records or pictures that they left behind?
At Wikipedia, see Timeline of Astronomy
2) So far, what is the extent of the current mass extinction event (compared with previous events)?
3) "Cannot move in space without moving in time" -- Please comment
4) "introduced suckling and love? -- Does this imply a relationship between two?
5) Agriculture- -"Mother of all revolutions" -- What is essentials?
6) How do we know the universe is 14 billion years old?
7) Did two black holes actually collide - how do we know?
8) How did cosmologists predict black holes and what's the connection to gravitational waves?
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Miscellaneous Resources
An excellent, detailed Cosmic Calendar
The “simple set of rules” that define science:
· Test ideas by experiment and observation.
· Build on those ideas that pass the test.
· Reject the ones that fail.
· Follow the evidence wherever it leads.
· Question everything.
• Project Breakthrough Starshot
• The "Halls of Extinction" are named for the geological periods, eras, or ages that came to an end with a great extinction event (sometimes called a "great dying"). The five major historical extinctions are (in chronological order) Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, Triassic, and Cretaceous. The sixth one, the Anthropocene (more commonly called the Holocene) extinction is going on now.
To read about the specific extinctions in the Hall of Extinction, search Wikipedia like this: Permian extinction.
1) when?
2) what died?
3) what caused it?
4) what opportunities did each event offer to surviving species?
• Just for reference: Geologic Time Scale
• The Electromagnetic Spectrum:
