Stellar Neighborhood and Light-Year Units

I am thrilled to introduce a significant new segment for the Origins Podcast. We are producing a fully fledged 12-part series titled “A Dozen Lessons on Physics and Reality.” Over the coming months, we will release these lectures to provide a comprehensive guide to how physicists think about the world. I’m particularly excited to share the wonder and insights that are often lost in standard textbook descriptions, while giving more detail than one might obtain in a standard 1 hour physics lecture. These will be based on lectures I have given to non-scientists at institutions I have taught, ranging from Yale University to The New College of Humanities in London.

We begin with Lecture 1: A Tour of the Universe.

To understand the cosmos, we must abandon the linear scales of human experience. In this opening lecture, I utilize the mathematical tool of “powers of ten” to map the true playing field of physics. This tour is about perspective. It reveals how the universe operates on scales of space and time that are vastly different from our daily lives, ranging from the subatomic scales to the cosmic microwave background. It is a journey that highlights our cosmic insignificance while simultaneously celebrating the power of science to explore our origins and to change our perspective of our place in the cosmos. This tour is just the beginning. Here is the full curriculum we have planned for the series:

* A tour of the Universe

* The Gestalt of Physics: Tools for seeing

* Space, Scale, and Symmetry

* Motion, from Galileo to Einstein

* Gravity, Dark Matter, and the Expanding Universe

* Electricity and Magnetism, a repeat performance

* The Four Forces of Nature

* Quantum Mechanics 1

* Quantum Mechanics 2: Chemistry

* Quantum Mechanics in your face

* Heat worth dying for?

* The meaning of scientific truth

This initiative ties directly into our ongoing efforts at The Origins Project Foundation to expand our impact and achieve our mission of enhancing your excitement and appreciation of the wonders of the cosmos, providing the public tools to better understand the challenges of the 21st century, and how to deal with them. By making these fundamental ideas accessible, we hope to inspire a deeper appreciation for the scientific method and its importance in creating the world we live in, and producing a better world tomorrow.

Enjoy!

As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.