In 2017 the Boulder Cosmology Group met at 6PM for DVD lectures on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month and reading discussions on third Mondays at the Main Library. All meetings are free and open to the public. (Monday discussions are usually in the second-floor Flatirons Room and Wednesday lectures in the first-floor Boulder Creek Room). Dates and locations are subject to change. Changes from the normal pattern are noted below.
See http://www.sackett.net/cosmologyAll.htm for a list of all meetings of the Cosmology Group since it began in 2003.
2017 Second and Fourth Wednesdays, selected DVD lectures from Professor Alex Filippenko's course “Black Holes Explained”. This series of 12 half hour lectures describes regions in space where the force of gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. Regions with physical conditions so extreme that they have not yet been reproduced in any terrestrial laboratory. Regions so dense that an object as tiny as a walnut would have the same mass as our entire planet. For a full description of the series, with descriptions of each lecture, visit http://www.teach12.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=1841.
We will watch the 30 minute lectures using an “interruptus” format: at any point during the lecture anyone in the group can say stop and ask a question and the rest of the group will attempt to answer the question before proceeding. We will attempt to cover two lectures in each meeting. If we don't have time the next DVD lecture meeting will start with the second lecture (and this schedule will be adjusted).
Expected Schedule with Monday book discussions flagged in bold:
January 9, 2017 Book Discussion: Basic Concepts in Physics: From the Cosmos to Quarks, by Masud Chaichian. Chapters 8 - 9. Fermi Dirac and Bose Einstein Statistics; Four Fundamental Forces.
For Chapter 8, a paper from Dave Peterson about the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics for Topology in Exotic Materials.
Note: This ^^^^ discussion is a week earlier than usual because of Martin Luther King Day.
January 11, 2017
Black Hole Lectures 5: Monster of the Milky Way and Other Galaxies, and 6: Quasars–Feasting Supermassive Black Holes.
January 25, 2017
Black Hole Lectures 7: Gravitational Waves–Ripples in Space-Time, and 8: The Wildest Ride in the Universe.
February 8, 2017
Black Hole Lectures 9: Wormholes, and 10: Steven Hawking and Black Hole Evaporation.
For Lecture 9, see this article about a possible connection between entanglement and gravity.
February 13, 2017 Book Discussion: Basic Concepts in Physics: From the Cosmos to Quarks, by Masud Chaichian. Chapters 8 - 9 (continued). Fermi Dirac and Bose Einstein Statistics; Four Fundamental Forces.
Note: This ^^^^ discussion is a week earlier than usual because of Presidents' Day.
February 22, 2017
Black Hole Lectures 11: Black Holes and the Holographic Universe, and 12: Black Holes and the Large Hadron Collider.
March 8, 2017
DVD lecture series - Sean Carroll's “Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time”.
Lecture 1: Why Time is a Mystery.
March 20, 2017 Book Discussion: Basic Concepts in Physics: From the Cosmos to Quarks, by Masud Chaichian. Chapter 10. General Relativity and Cosmology.
For Chapter 10, Roger Penrose essay on “The Einstein Equation of General Relativity”, from It Must Be Beautiful: Great Equations of Modern Science.
March 22, 2017
DVD lecture series - Sean Carroll's “Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time”.
Lecture 2: What is Time? and Lecture 3: Keeping Time.
April 12, 2017
DVD lecture series - Sean Carroll's “Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time”.
Lecture 4: Time's Arrow, and Lecture 5: The Second Law of Thermodynamics.
April 17, 2017 Book Discussion: Basic Concepts in Physics: From the Cosmos to Quarks, by Masud Chaichian. Chapters 11 - 12. Unification of the Forces of Nature; Physics and Life.
April 26, 2017
DVD lecture series - Sean Carroll's “Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time”.
Lecture 6: Reversibility and the Laws of Physics, and Lecture 7: Time Reversal in Particle Physics.
May 10, 2017
DVD lecture series - Sean Carroll's “Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time”.
Lecture 8: Time and Quantum Mechanics, and Lecture 9: Entropy and Counting.
May 15, 2017 Book Discussion: Now: The Physics of Time, by Richard A. Muller. Parts I and II.
May 24, 2017
DVD lecture series - Sean Carroll's “Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time”.
Lecture 10: Playing with Entropy, and Lecture 11: The Past Hypothesis.
June 14, 2017
DVD lecture series - Sean Carroll's “Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time”.
Lecture 12: Memory, Causality, and Action, and Lecture 13: Boltzmann Brains.
June 19, 2017 Book Discussion: Now: The Physics of Time, by Richard A. Muller. Parts III, IV, and V.
For possible tests of Muller's theory that the arrow of time is a result of the expansion of spacetime, see this 10 page paper.
June 28, 2017
DVD lecture series - Sean Carroll's “Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time”.
Lecture 14: Complexity and Life, and Lecture 15: The Perception of Time.
July 12, 2017
DVD lecture series - Sean Carroll's “Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time”.
Lecture 16: Memory and Consciousness, and Lecture 17: Time and Relativity.
July 17, 2017 Book Discussion: Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity, by Carl Rovelli.
July 26, 2017
DVD lecture series - Sean Carroll's “Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time”.
Lecture 18: Curved Spacetime and Black Holes, and Lecture 19: Time Travel.
August 9, 2017
DVD lecture series - Sean Carroll's “Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time”.
Lecture 20: Black Hole Entropy.
August 14, 2017 Book Discussion: Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity, by Carl Rovelli. Reference: Lee Smolin's Three Roads to Quantum Gravity.
Note: This discussion will happen a week early (because of the Eclipse) in the George Reynolds Branch Meeting Room.
August 23, 2017
DVD lecture series - Sean Carroll's “Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time”.
Lecture 21: Evolution of the Universe, and, to evaluate whether we should do Professor Don Lincoln's course on
“The Quest to Explain All Reality”, Lecture 24: Toward a Final Theory of Everything.
For Lecture 21, a solution from Steve for the cosmological constant in Einstein's General Relativity Equations: “So Long Dark Energy”.
September 13, 2017
DVD lecture series - Sean Carroll's “Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time”.
Lecture 22: The Big Bang, and Lecture 23: The Multiverse.
September 18, 2017 Book Discussion: Cosmic Catastrophes: Exploding Stars, Black Holes, and Mapping the Universe (2nd Edition, 2007), by J. Craig Wheeler. Chapters 1 to 7.
Note: This meeting is in the Main Library's Arapahoe Conference Room.
September 27, 2017
DVD lecture series - Sean Carroll's “Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time”.
Lecture 24: Approaches to the Arrow of Time.
Professor Don Lincoln's course on
“The Quest to Explain All Reality”, Lecture 1: Two Prototype Theories of Everything.
October 11, 2017
DVD Lectures - Professor Don Lincoln's course on “The Quest to Explain All Reality”, Lecture 2: The Union of Electricity and Magnetism, and 3: Particles and Waves, The Quantum World.
October 16, 2017 Book Discussion: Cosmic Catastrophes: Exploding Stars, Black Holes, and Mapping the Universe (2nd Edition, 2007), by J. Craig Wheeler. Chapters 8 to 10.
October 25, 2017
DVD Lectures - Professor Don Lincoln's course on “The Quest to Explain All Reality”, Lecture 4: Einstein Unifies Space, Time, and Light, and 5: Relativistic Quantum Fields and Feynman.
November 8, 2017
DVD Lectures - Professor Don Lincoln's course on “The Quest to Explain All Reality”, Lecture 6: Neutrinos Violating Parity and the Weak Force, and 7: Flavor Changes via the Weak Force.
November 20, 2017 Book Discussion: Cosmic Catastrophes: Exploding Stars, Black Holes, and Mapping the Universe (2nd Edition, 2007), by J. Craig Wheeler. Chapters 11 to 14.
November 29, 2017
DVD Lectures - Professor Don Lincoln's course on
“The Quest to Explain All Reality”,
Lecture 8: Electroweak Unification via the Higgs Field,
and 9: Quarks, Color, and the Strong Force.
Note: This ^^^^ meeting is on the 5th Wednesday because of Thanksgiving
December 13, 2017
DVD Lectures - Professor Don Lincoln's course on “The Quest to Explain All Reality”, Lecture 10: Standard Model Triumphs and Challenges, and 11: How Neutrino Identity Oscillates.
December 18, 2017 Book Discussion: Ripples in Spacetime by Govert Schilling. Chapters 1 to 9.
For more information, e-mail group leader Jeff Grove: jeff1.grove@gmail.com.
This is http://www.sackett.net/cosmologySchedule2017.htm, last updated October 24, 2017.