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Cosmology Tim Arlen UCLA Physics Department Fall 2006 Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

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Presentation on theme: "Cosmology Tim Arlen UCLA Physics Department Fall 2006 Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)"— Presentation transcript:

1 Cosmology Tim Arlen UCLA Physics Department Fall 2006 Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

2 Pleiades Star Cluster. Image Credit: Robert Gendler. Cosmology- study of the overall structure and properties of the universe as a whole.

3 Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and Martino Romaniello (European Southern Observatory, Germany) Topics to Explore Highlight history of human thought Overview of our current theory Do we believe our theory is correct?

4 Image Credit: NASA, ESA, HEIC, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Cat’s Eye Nebula Greek Cosmology ~ 400 B.C. Plato and Aristotle 5 Elements of the universe: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Quintessence. Earth-stationary, everything revolved around it in circles.

5 Greek Cosmology Image Credit: NASA,ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

6 Image Credit: NASA, NOAO, ESA, the Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M. Meixner (STScI), and T.A. Rector (NRAO) More Greek Cosmology Ptolemy ~ 200 A.D, “geocentric model”, Earth is very small compared to heavens Based on mathematics; planets move in “Epicycles” Taught throughout Middle Ages. Image credit: http://math-ed.com /Resources/GIS/Geometry_In_Space/

7 Pre-20 th Century Cosmology Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo –“Heliocentric Model” Advancement of telescope, galaxies discovered By end of 19 th Century: belief in infinite, static, homogeneous universe. Image Credit: Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team Hubble Ultra Deep Field

8 Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Einstein bursts onto the scene! Formulated General Relativity by 1915 Equations showed that the universe is expanding. He didn’t like this! Birth of Modern Cosmology

9 Pleiades Star Cluster. Image Credit: Robert Gendler. Some Gravity Concepts Mass affects space by bending it. Imagine space in 2D, like a trampoline.

10 Image Credit: NASA, ESA, HEIC, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Cat’s Eye Nebula Dramatic Comfirmation of GR Bending of starlight. Confirmed with eclipse in 1916. Image: http://astro.physics.sc.edu /selfpacedunits/Unit57.html Image Credit: (Cover) Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity by Sean Carroll, published by Addison-Wesley.

11 Expansion of Space Some Time T Some Time Later T +  T

12 Image Credit: NASA,ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team Hubble and Expansion 1929-Hubble demonstrated his famous result: The farther away an object is from us, the faster it moves away from us. Courtesy of the Archives, California Institute of Technology

13 Image Credit: NASA, NOAO, ESA, the Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M. Meixner (STScI), and T.A. Rector (NRAO) Modern Cosmology Theory of universe’s origins developed Expansion and GR equations imply a beginning, called “singularity” Came to be called “Big Bang Theory” Explosion of space, matter, energy Use known laws of physics to reconstruct history of Universe, predict new phenomena.

14 Image Credit: Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team Hubble Ultra Deep Field Source: The Birth of the Universe: The Kingfisher Young People’s Book of Space

15 Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and Martino Romaniello (European Southern Observatory, Germany) Cosmic Microwave Background About 300,000 yrs ATB, “era of recombination” Photons can pass through universe unimpeded Before this time, universe was a plasma

16 Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Observational Consequences Universe itself (space) emits radiation, because it’s hot After “Era of Recombination” universe is transparent to photons Blackbody Radiation predicted- “Cosmic Microwave Background” (CMB) in 1960’s.

17 Pleiades Star Cluster. Image Credit: Robert Gendler. Major Discovery AT&T Bell Laboratory, Penzias & Wilson inadvertently discover “background noise” in the microwave region. Awarded Nobel Prize in 1978

18 Image Credit: NASA, ESA, HEIC, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Cat’s Eye Nebula Cosmic Microwave Background COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) found that CMB is uniform (isotropic) to 1 part in 10,000 Source: Ned Wright’s Cosmology Tutorial http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm

19 Image Credit: NASA,ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team Problem-Galaxy Formation If all matter is spread out uniformly, how could matter clump together and form galaxies and star clusters?

20 Image Credit: NASA, NOAO, ESA, the Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M. Meixner (STScI), and T.A. Rector (NRAO) Source: Ned Wright’s Cosmology Tutorial http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm Anisotropy Discovered CMB is nonuniform to 1 part in 100,000. Slightly denser region of space implies slightly hotter region of space

21 Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and Martino Romaniello (European Southern Observatory, Germany) Major Discovery Slightly hotter (more dense) regions are the “seeds” of galaxy formation Further evidence for dark matter? John Mather and George Smoot – Awarded 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for this work

22 Image Credit: Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team Hubble Ultra Deep Field Brief Recap Source: The Birth of the Universe: The Kingfisher Young People’s Book of Space

23 Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and Martino Romaniello (European Southern Observatory, Germany) Olber’s Paradox If the universe was infinite & static, then along any line of sight, you will eventually hit a star. Then the night sky should be as bright as an average star!


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