Astronomy 211 Possible Cosmological Conference Topics

For your topic posting, please put down what you will be talking about. Give your talk a title!. You may work with another classmate or individually. As an individual, you will have no more than 5 or 6 minutes, and 2 minutes for questions. We will be on a very strict time schedule. If working with a partner, you will have about twice as much time as you will need to have twice as much content. For identical topics submitted, the individual(s) who submitted their ideas first get priority. You should discuss with your instructor what your plans are if special arrangements need to be made.

Cosmology and the Arts or Humanities

  1. Pythagoreans
  2. Kepler's "Harmonies of the World"
  3. The Flatlanders
  4. What is the University of Kepler?
  5. How history and civilization affected advancement of science

Advancements in Cosmology

  1. Tycho Brahe's observatory and observations
  2. Leaps made as technology improved: Galileo's telescope, Hale telescope, HST

Cosmology and Theology

  1. Relate Mayan (or other similar culture) cosmology to what we know today
  2. Giordano Bruno
  3. Summarize Galileo and the Inquisition and his pardon by Catholic Church mid-1990's
  4. Enact Galileo's "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems"
  5. Science and the Islamic World (Physics Today, August 2007, p. 49)
  6. Religious ties of modern astronomers (LeMaître, Einstein, Hawkings, or others)
  7. Keeping religion and science separate (very broad; make narrow)

Cosmology and Our Centrality

  1. Anthropic cosmological principle
  2. The fine-tuning of the physical constants
  3. Popular media's treatment of cosmology
  4. Cosmetology or cosmology? current misconceptions about cosmology
  5. Search for extra-terrestrial life
  6. Future of the Sun and Earth (Life and Death of the Planet Earth)

Summary of New York Times Articles

I have a booklet full of NY Times articles on astronomy/cosmology topics. You may want to choose one and then do a presentation on that topic, explaining the concepts, including background, showing supporting images, etc. Here are the article titles:
  1. Tiny, Plentify, and Really Hard to Catch (about neutrinos)
  2. Astronomers Call LBV 1806-20 the Supertar That Outshines All
  3. Two Stars Collide; A New Star is Born
  4. Life-or-Death Question: How Supernovas Happen
  5. 3 Giant Stars May Point the Way to Our Sun's Destiny
  6. Dying Star Flares Up, Briefly Outshining Rest of Galaxy
  7. Stars Suggest a Quark Twist and a New Kind of Matter
  8. In Galaxies Near and Far, New Views of the Universe Emerge
  9. Three Dozen New Galaxies Are Found in Nearby Space
  10. From Distant Galaxies, News of a "Stop-and-Go Universe"
  11. Songs of the Galaxies, and What They Mean
  12. Black Holes' Vast Power is Documented
  13. Music of the Heavens Turns Out to Sound a Lot Like a B Flat
  14. By X-Raying Galaxies, Researchers Offer New Evidence of Rapidly Expanding Universe
  15. From Space, A New View of Doomsday
  16. New Data on 2 Doomsday Ideas: Big Rip vs. Big Crunch
  17. Vetiges of Big Bang Waves are Reported
  18. String Theory, at 20, Explains It All (or Not)

Physical Aspects of Cosmology

  1. Tully-Fisher Relation and Distances to Galaxies
  2. Modern classification schemes of galaxies and what they tell us
  3. Formation and evolution of galaxies
  4. Evidence for high-velocity stars
  5. The hunt for gravity waves
  6. Evidence for the very first stars and a reionization of the Universe
  7. Cosmic superstrings and supercollosal supercolliders
  8. What particle physics tells us about the origin of the universe
  9. Supermassive black holes
  10. Update on gamma ray bursters
  11. Overview of some of Hubble Space Telescope's discoveries
  12. Overview of some of Spitzer Space Telescope's discoveries
  13. Theories currently competing with Big Bang theory
  14. Dark energy and evidence of accelerating universe
  15. Gravitational lensing
  16. Quasars
  17. Nature of dark matter
  18. COBE, BOOMErANG, WMAP