ASTRONOMY 9: HISTORY OF COSMOLOGY

Syllabus

J. E. Baker
UC Berkeley, Spring 2000

Note: Preliminary and subject to change!!

Week 1.

1/19

Introduction. What is Cosmology? Science and Society. Origin Myths and Magic. The Structure and Meaning of Cosmological Myth.

1/21

Origin Myths. Africa.

Week 2.

1/24

Origin Myths. Siberia and the Americas.

1/26

Origin Myths. Australia and the Pacific.

1/28

Origin Myths. India, China, and Japan.

Week 3.

1/31

Origin Myths. The Middle East and Europe.

2/2

Astrology. History. Relationship with pre-scientific cosmology. Scientific tests. An unscientific world?

2/4

Ancient Astronomy. The naked-eye sky. The role of astronomy in the ancient world. China. The Mayans. The Celts. Babylon and Egypt.

Week 4.

2/7

The Ancient Greeks. The dawn of rationality. The Ionians. Thales. The Eleatics: All is change. The Pythagoreans and the harmony of the spheres.

2/9

The Ancient Greeks. Atoms and the Void. Plato's Cave.

2/11

The Ancient Greeks. Aristotle and Eudoxus. The onion universe.

Week 5.

2/14

The Ancient Greeks. The central fire. Aristarchus--the heliocentric universe. Ptolemy--the ferris wheel universe.

2/16

The Medieval Cosmos. Augustine and the City of God. Cosmic innovation continues in Arabia.

2/18

The Medieval Cosmos. Aquinas. Rediscovering the Greeks.

Week 6.

2/21

President's Day: Go skiing!

2/23

Copernicus. The heliocentric model. A reluctant revolutionary.

2/25

Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler. The new astronomy. Tycho's cosmos. Planetary motion. Nature and geometry. Kepler's laws. The changing heavens.

Week 7.

2/28

Galileo. The principle of inertia. The telescope. The heliocentric model and the church. A theory of the tides. The Inquisition.

3/1

Descartes and Newton. The problem of gravitation. Vortices. Newton's Three Laws.

3/3

Newton. The great synthesis. Universal gravitation. The mathematical clock-work cosmos.

Week 8.

3/6

The Birth of Astrophysics. Stars and nebulae. Electromagnetism and light. Emission and absorption lines. Thermodynamics.

3/8

Problems in Physics. The end of the 19th century. The mysterious ether. The ultraviolet catastrophe.

3/10

Midterm exam. Study hard!

Week 9.

3/13

Special Relativity. The Principle of Relativity. The theory of an absolute. The ultimate speed limit. Length and time contraction.

3/15

Special Relativity. Fun with paradoxes. A new view of space and time.

3/17

General Relativity. The mysteries of gravity. The Principle of Equivalence.

Week 10.

3/20

General Relativity. Gravity and curved space.

3/22

General Relativity. Tests of the theory. Black holes. Physical laws and their limits of applicability.

3/24

Life in the Quantum World. The sub-atomic world. Quantum indeterminism. The interpretation of quantum mechanics.

3/27-3/31. Spring Break. Have fun!

Week 11.

4/3

The Great Debate. Shapley, Curtis, and the nature of the ``spiral nebulae''.

4/5

The Expanding Universe. Einstein's ``greatest blunder''. Friedmann makes the universe expand. The Einstein-de Sitter model.

4/7

Steady State vs. Big Bang. An eternal universe? Controversy in cosmology.

Week 12.

4/10

Structure in the Universe. To live and die as a star. Black holes in the universe.

4/12

Structure in the Universe. Galaxies and clusters of galaxies. Superclusters. Is the universe a fractal?

4/14

Echoes of the Bang. The cosmic microwave background radiation.

Week 13.

4/17

The Formation of the Elements. Nucleosynthesis in the early universe. Production in stars.

4/19

Inflation. Cosmic coincidences force a new paradigm.

4/21

Physics of the Early Universe. The four fundamental forces and their unification. The problem of gravity. Initial conditions. Baby universes and worlds without end.

Week 14.

4/24

The Dark Side of Matter. Evidence for dark matter. Hot vs. cold. Neutrino physics.

4/26

Structure Formation. Digital universes. The evolution of structure: theory and observation. Current problems.

4/28

The Ultimate Fate. Supernovae and the evidence for dark energy. Eternal inflation and quantum cosmology. The future of civilization.

Week 15.

5/1

Cosm. Growing a universe in the lab. How science works.

5/3

Cosm. A brief history of the universe.

5/5

Other topics. The anthropic principle. Life in the universe. Cosmology, religion and philosophy. ...

5/8

Review. Good luck on the final!

5/16

Final exam. 5:00 pm (group 11).

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