By the end of this unit, a successful student will be able to:
- Describe the shape and structure of spiral galaxies
- Describe how certain variable stars are used as distance measurements
- Explain how Shapley used globular clusters to determine our relationship to the center of the galaxy
- Explain how the spiral arms in spiral galaxies are thought to originate
- Describe the dark matter problem
- Describe the different types of galaxies
- Explain how the Tully-Fisher relation and supernovae are used as standard candles
- Describe Hubble's law and how it relates to Big Bang theory (MSTE: ESS 4.1)
- Describe what is known about the beginnings and evolution of the universe and what evidence there is to support that knowledge (MSTE: ESS 4.1)
All assignments are due on the date listed. That is not the date they are assigned.
Date Due Day Assignment
1/7 Mon Read: 17.6
Do: Ch 17: R&D: 13
Read: 23.1, 23.2 pp. 604-609
Do: Ch 23: R&D: 1-6
1/8 Tue Read: 23.2 (609-612), 23.3
Do: R&D: 6-9
TF/MC: 12-15
1/9 Wed Read: 23.4; 23.6 (review 23.5)
Do: R&D: 15-18
TF/MC: 8,18,19
1/10 Thu Read: 23.7, and p. 595 (22.8)
Do 23: R&D: 19,20
TF/MC: 9,10,20
Do 22: TF/MC: 10, 20
1/11 Fri Read: 24.1, 24.2
Do: R&D: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7
1/14 Mon Read: 24.3, 25,1
Do: R&D: 24: 8-10; R&D 25: 1-3
1/15 Tue Read: 25.2, 25.3
Do: R&D: 4-9
1/16 Wed Read: 26.2, 26.7
Do: R&D: 4-8, 16, 17, 18
1/17 Thu Read: 26.3, 26.4, 26.5
Do: R&D: 9,10,12,13,14
1/18 Fri Read: 27.4, 27.5
Do R&D: 13,14,15,16,18,19
1/22 Tue Review
1/23-1/24 Wed, Thu Final Exams
- Cosmology
- Carl Sagan's 1980 mini-series Cosmos had an episode describing the flatness of the universe and cosmology. The first two segments of these YouTube clips are based on Edwin Abbott's classic novel Flatland
- What can we determine about how the universe formed and how it is structured? How do we figure this out? Ned Wright maintains a very useful collection ofFrequently Asked Questions in Cosmology
- John Hawley and Katherine Holcomb provide web support for their text Foundations of Modern Cosomology including summaries of the contents and relevant links.
- In 1980, Alan Guth introduced the Cosmic Inflation theory, a refinement of the Big Bang theory. Guth introduces this theory in an article originally for "The Beamline" in Was Cosmic Inflation the 'Bang' of the Big Bang?
- Andre Linde has helped modify and expand Guth's original theory and on his home page describes the "Self Reproducing Inflationary Universe".
- John Gribbin author of several popular science books, presents Inflation for Beginners
- When Albert Einstein first described General Relativity in 1915, he included a cosmological constant which kept the universe in his theory from collapsing in on itself. Later observational evidence showed that the universe was expanding as if from some initial explosion and not holding some steady state as Einstein had assumed. This made the cosmological constant unnecessary and Einstein considered it "his greatest blunder". However, recent observational evidence suggests that the universe may be expanding more rapidly than gravitational attraction should allow. This has led many to suggest we may need to re-introduce the cosmological constant and explain this repulsion that occurs over very large scales as a consequence of vacuum energy a.k.a. "dark energy".
- This article from Science Beat describes how SNAP, the SuperNova/Acceleration Probe might be used to find evidence of such dark energy.
- Paul Preuss reports on dark energy as originally described by Bahcall, Bahcall, Ostriker and Steinhardt in a 1999 article from Science magazine.
- Scott Watson collected a number of Inflationary Cosmology Links over the course of working on an undergraduate thesis on that topic.
- Offline
- Guth, Alan The Inflationary Universe Perseus Books, Reading, MA, 1997. Popular science book at approximately Scientific American level. Here Guth describes the nature of Inflation theory as well as the history of its development.