- 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?
Universe; The Beginning!
Since ages people have been wondering on what is universe, how big, and since when? Questions like does it have a beginning, and will there be an end; how was it formed and what was there before all this beginning’?
Tremendous work in science has allowed us more answers in last few years than centuries before. Still many questions are unanswered, and many not even understood properly.
In our “Weekend Lecture Series” we will begin to search for answer of few of the questions. Each Lecture will take up 3 Big Questions, and we will search most plausible answers for these questions.
It will be short series of lectures of around 30 minutes each.
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