Astronomy 350 Short Assignment #1

Sonoma State University
Spring 2008

Short Assignment #1
A Lecture on Current Research in Cosmology
due one week after you view the lecture, but no later than May 16

Attend a lecture on current research in cosmology and write a one to two page account of what you learned from the lecture. Select one of the lectures listed below, all of which will be presented in SSU's "WHAT PHYSICISTS DO" series at 4:00 p.m. in Darwin 103, or find an alternative. Please confirm alternative lectures with me in advance.

This assignment may be submitted either on paper or via e-mail. BOTH e-mail messages AND enclosures must include A350HW1Syourlastname in the title. Titles of enclosures should end in .doc, .rtf, or .pdf, that is, they should be Word, rtf, or pdf documents. Thus the title of the document you enclose with an e-mail message should be similar to A350HW1SSmith.doc.

This semester there will be four lectures with some cosmological content:

FEB 4	MASSIVE SKY SURVEYS OF THE NEXT DECADE
	Dr. David Wittman of the University of California, Davis will describe how systematic imaging of the sky to much fainter levels than ever before is expected to reveal everything from 200-meter rocks in Earth-crossing orbits to very distant galaxies. [Now available on DVD in the SSU library.]

FEB 25	THE EVOLUTION OF GALAXIES IN DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS
	Dr. Jacqueline van Gorkom of Columbia University will show observations and simulations that suggest that the evolution of a galaxy may be seriously affected by its environment.[Now available on DVD in the SSU library and online.]

APR 14	LIGO: LASERS, OPTICS, AND INTERFEROMETRY IN THE SEARCH FOR GRAVITATIONAL WAVES
	Dr. Shailendhar Saraf of Sonoma State University will discuss the technological challenges in the detection of gravitational waves with a terrestrial instrument and describe the laser technology and interferometric techniques used in LIGO. [Now available on DVD in the SSU library.]

MAY 5	LIGHTING UP THE DARK: GALAXIES AS PROBES OF THE DARK UNIVERSE
	Dr. Risa Wechsler of Stanford University will describe how the dark matter that pervades our Universe is connected to the galaxies observed with telescopes, and how galaxy surveys can be used to understand the contents of our Universe. [Now available on DVD in the SSU library.]

You are encouraged to attend these lectures and hear them “live,” but if you can't, then you may view one of the lectures from past series. These are available on video or DVD at the Multimedia Center in the library:

FEB 6 2006	SEEING THE INVISIBLES: THE CHALLENGE TO PARTICLE PHYSICS IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM Dr. Hitoshi Murayama of the University of California at Berkeley will discuss the challenges in attempting to understand the 95% of the universe that is not made up of ordinary matter.

FEB 13 2006	CREATING MINI BIG BANGS IN THE LABORATORY Brooke Haag (’01) of the University of California, Davis will discuss how observing collisions between relativistic nuclei at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has implications for understanding conditions at the earliest stages of the universe.

MAR 6 2006	ROTATING GALAXIES: CLUES TO GALAXY FORMATION Dr. Anne Metevier of the University of California, Santa Cruz will describe her efforts to measure how fast distant disk-shaped galaxies rotate, and what this information can tell us about how galaxies formed.

MAR 13 2006	EINSTEIN’S UNIVERSE AND BEYOND Dr. Lynn Cominsky of Sonoma State University will show how high-energy observations of radiation from exploding stars, blazing galaxies and monstrous black holes illuminate Einstein’s vision in ways that Einstein could only imagine.

Feb 4 2002	OBSERVING THE SUN FROM 6800 FT UNDERGROUND: THE SUDBURY NEUTRINO OBSERVATORY Dr. Kevin Lesko, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Mar 18 2002	THE UNIVERSE REVEALED: THE TWO MICRON ALL SKY SURVEY Dr. Thomas H. Jarrett, Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Mar 1 1999	PINCHING THE DOUGHNUT: QUANTUM BLACK HOLES AND THE GLOBAL STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE Dr. Raphael Bousso, Stanford University

Apr 19 1999	WHAT CAN WE KNOW ABOUT THE UNIVERSE? Dr. Andreas Albrecht, University of California, Davis

Mar 30 1998	SMALL PARTICLES AND LARGE COMPUTERS Dr. Gregory Kilcup, Ohio State University

Apr 6 1998	SPACE TELESCOPES AND THE SEARCH FOR ORIGINS Dr. Alan Dressler, Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington

Apr 27 1998	HOW THE UNIVERSE GOT ITS SPOTS Dr. Janna Levin, University of California at Berkeley

May 4 1998	THE AGE OF THE UNIVERSE Dr. Michael Bolte, UCO/Lick Observatory and University of California, Santa Cruz

Mar 24 1997	EINSTEIN'S BIGGEST BLUNDER WASN'T Kevin Krisciunas, University of Washington

Apr 7 1997	THE EVOLUTION OF GALAXIES IN THE DISTANT UNIVERSE Dr. Nicole P. Vogt, UCO/Lick Observatory and University of California, Santa Cruz

All Assignments

Please send comments, additions, corrections, and questions to
joe.tenn@sonoma.edu

JST

2008-05-08