Week #1 Introduction. Contrasts between the modern approach to science and the approaches used in antiquity. Discussion of the scientific method. The importance of a scientifically literate society. Large numbers and exponential notation. Early cosmologies. Egyptian views of the cosmos. The Early Greeks: Pythagoras. The constituents of matter. Aristotle's physics. Week #2 Greek cosmologies. Aristotle's cosmology. Heliocentric theory and its detractors. Erathostenes and the measurement of the world. Epicycles and the Ptolemaic theory. From the Middle ages to the Renaissance. Cosmology during the Middle Ages; clashes between the Church and Aristotelian doctrine. The Copernican revolution, its critics and supporters. Generalizations of the heliocentric system. Observational cosmology: Tycho Brahe. Kepler's solids. The three laws of celestial mechanics. Week #3 Galileo(1). Galileo's science: the death of the Aristotelian view. Critics and supporters of Galileo. The concept of a frame of reference. Galilean relativity: definition and implications. Galileo's mechanics Galileo (2) - Newton (1). Galileo's astronomy: the telescope and the vindication of the heliocentric model. Newton's Optics. Newton's first two laws. Week #4 Newton (2) - Electricity and Magnetism (1). Newton's 3rd law. The universal law of gravitation. Newtonian concepts of space and time. The first unification in physics. Electricity in antiquity. Coulomb's laws Electricity and Magnetism (2). Magnetism in antiquity. Connections between electricity and magnetism. The idea of a field. Maxwell's equations and the second unification in physics. The speed of light. Week #5 Special relativity (1). Waves vs. particles. Light as a wave. The ether & its problems. The principle of relativity Contradictions between Maxwell's equations and Newton's physics. The speed of light is absolute. Special relativity (2). Relativity of simultaneous events. Time dilation. Length contraction. Special relativity and stellar travel. Week #6 Midterm. Covers all material presented in lecture up before relativity of simulatenous events . Good luck! Special relativity (3). Paradoxes and their resolution. The speed of light as the maximum speed. Space and time. Mass and energy. Problems with Newton's theory of gravity. Week #7 General relativity (1). Inertial and gravitational masses. The principle of equivalence. Gravitation and acceleration. Bending of light. General relativity (2). Effects of gravity on clocks. Black holes. Gravitation and energy. Space-time. Week #8 General relativity (3). Curvature and gravitation. Gravitational waves. Tests of the general theory of gravitation. Cosmology (1). The universe as a whole; homogeneity and isotropy assumptions. Predictions of General Relativity. The expanding universe and its observational evidence. Hubble's law. The Big Bang Week #9 Cosmology (2). The consequences of the Big Bang hypothesis.An abridged history of the universe. Neutrinos; the creation of light elements; the microwave background radiation. Cosmology (3). Extensions of the Big Bang: the cosmological constant, dark matter. Horizons and mass: the inflation paradigm its virtues and vices. Week #10 Lifes of a star. Stellar power. Stellar evolution, the role of the total mass. White dwarfs, supernovae, neutron stars and black holes. The case for life in the universe. "Evidence" of contact; the search for contact. |