Day 5: Monday, July 15, 2013

Post date: Jul 15, 2013 8:24:37 PM

Essential Questions:

1) What makes a threshold a threshold?

2) What was the role of gravity in the formation of the early universe?

Today we recapped our seminar from last week then moved into new material. We talked about a "formula" for thresholds and how that formula applies to the first threshold: The Big Bang. To recap our lecture about Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, you can watch this Khan Academy video explaining what happens with gravity and its immense strength near dense objects. We also talked about Einstein's famous equation about mass and energy equivalence. We then watched the Unit 3 Main Lecture entitled How were Stars Formed? (Videos: Part 1, Part 2).

As extra, here is the film Powers of 10 that shows scales of the universe, from the tiniest particle to the large expanses of the universe.

Here are the details of the Little Big History Project, including dates and descriptions of the steps. Please refer to this document whenever in doubt about the project. You can also always email Ms. Skafish and Mr. Lao.

For HW, due Tuesday, please:

Complete the Little Big History Initial Topic Graphic Organizer. It is due at the beginning of class tomorrow.
Study for a quiz tomorrow on gravity, on the two equations we looked at in class (Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation and Einstein's Equation of Mass-Energy Equivalence), and on the emergence of stars. Review your notes from today's lecture as well as Christian p. 39-46 to help you prepare.

For HW, due Wednesday, please read and annotate the following, in order is best, keeping in mind how things got more complex or where more complex things were created. These four texts will form the majority of your seminar texts for seminar this week.

There will also be a podcast for the seminar this week as well as something called the HR Diagram. You will get these materials and the seminar questions on Wednesday.