- How big is our Universe – not only in Space, but also in the fourth dimension of Time?
- And it all began with a Bang! What is Big Bang and how do we know it happened?
- How can we decided on What to Believe?
Lecture 2- First Three Thresholds
- The first three Minutes. How did the Universe become more complex?
- How are the Stars formed and why are they important?
- How can we decided on What to Believe?
Lecture 1-The Beginning
Watch Video recording of Lecture 1- The Beginning
Download Complete Lecture 1- How it all Began- in pdf format
Resources – Big Question 1-How big is our Universe?
Watch Videos
Space •The Scale of Universe-
Time •Cosmic Calendar-
Earth compared to rest of the stars- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Eh5BpSnBBw
•Size comparison of heavenly bodies- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i93Z7zljQ7I
Read
•C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution” (1959)-http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/snow_1959.pdf
Resources – Big Question 2-What is Big Bang and how do we know it happened?
Read •Nobel Prize in Physics 2019
NASA introductory article on the Big Bang http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-powered-the-big-bang/
•“Edwin Powell Hubble: The man who discovered the cosmos” by Hubble Space Telescope division of European Space Agency (ESA) http://www.spacetelescope.org/about/history/the_man_behind_the_name/ •Georges Lemaître, Father of the Big Bang – https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/cosmic-horizons-book/georges-lemaitre-big-bang
•CMBR- https://www.bell-labs.com/about/history-bell-labs/stories-changed-world/Cosmic-Microwave-Background-Discovery/
Watch
•Red Shift
Origins of the Universe 101 | National Geographic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdPzOWlLrbE
•Time is just an illusion- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyYqyYAKGC0
LISTEN
•“Recording Captures Hiss of Cosmic Background Radiation” uploaded by New Scientist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJJmFnMea1Q
Resources – Big Question 3-How can we decided on What to Believe?
WATCH
•”What is Philosophy for?” The School of Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=17&v=mIYdx6lDDhg
•Claim Testers- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkDCkD88-B0
•“This thing called science” series, by ‘TechNyou” Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9IoN8Tb1wg
READ
•“Critical Thinking: what it is and why it counts” by Peter Facione http://www.insightassessment.com/CT-Resources/Teaching-For-and-About-Critical-Thinking/Critical-Thinking-What-It-Is-and-Why-It-Counts/Critical-Thinking-What-It-Is-and-Why-It-Counts-PDF
•“What is Epistemology: A brief introduction to the topic” by Keith de Rose http://campuspress.yale.edu/keithderose/what-is-epistemology/
Lecture 2-First Three Thresholds
Download Lecture 2- First Three Threshold in PDF Format
Video’s worth Watching
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is famous for looking deep into the past of the Universe. But it can also predict the future. This episode of the Hubblecast takes us on a journey five billion years from now, to see the ultimate fate of the Solar System
Carl Sagan – Cosmos- Stars – We Are The Children of Stars
Neil deGrasse Tyson- The Cosmic Poetry
Symphony of Science – ‘The Big Beginning’ (ft. Hawking, Sagan, Dawkins, Shears, Tyson)
Extra Resource Materials
- https://globaia.org/ Planetary Awareness through Science and Art
- https://www.spacetelescope.org/– Hubble Space Telescope
- http://exoplanets.org/ Data on Exoplanets
- “Stellar Evolution – Cycles of Formation and Destruction” Chandra: X-Ray Observatory
- Big History Institute
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis
- Symphony of Science – ‘Our Place in the Cosmos’
Nuclear Particles/ Fundamental Particles
- Glossary of Nuclear Terms
- Explained: what are fundamental particles?
- Fundamental Particles in early Universe
Bibliography
- Origin Story: A Big History of Everything- David Christian
- The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe; Steven Weinberg
- The Grand Design- Leonard Mlodinow and Stephen Hawking
- The Theory of Everything- Stephen Hawking
- The Goldilocks Enigma– Paul Davies
- A Universe from Nothing- Lawrence M. Krauss
- Cosmos: A Personal Voyage- Carl Sagan
- The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy- Adam Douglas
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind- Yuval Noah Harari