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History Telescopes Planets

Stars Galaxies Cosmology

“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t
matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment,
it’s wrong.”

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you
are the easiest person to fool.”

Richard Feymann, Nobel prize winner in physics.

“It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains
fall out.”

Carl Sagan, astronomer, creator of the Cosmos TV series.

Vision
Science starts
with curiosity
...something
that is born in
all of us

The starting
point is to find
patterns in the
natural world
 The medieval view
- Aristotle

The natural view

- Leonardo
Sketches of the Moon
The Sounds of Space

Kepler’s Harmony
The Sounds of Space

Big Bang Acoustics

Mark Whittle, UVa
Discovery
 Patterns in Nature

A B

C D
Numerical Sequence Alternating Red/Black

A B

Match Color or Number Red on Even, Black on Odd

C D
 The Periodic Table

Mendeleev and the Material World

Science Made Stupid (1985) Tom Weller

 Invention or discovery?

Michaelangelo
Imagination
Picasso
Imagining the Impossible

Nancarrow Study
#21 (1960)
 Imagining other worlds

Imagining orbits
Imagining Worm Holes

Contact (1997)
Imagining Worm Holes

Contact (1997)
Reasoning
Failures of Logic
Deduction combines DEDUCTION
statements or premises
and combines them to
reach a conclusion.

The conclusion is valid

only if the premises are
justified and the logical
construction is correct.

Deduction preserves
truth but doesn’t
always expand
knowledge.

i.e. symbolic logic,

arithmetic, algebra
2+2=4
Induction involves a DEDUCTION
INDUCTION
generalization from a
limited amount of
data to a broad
conclusion.

Induction cannot yield

certainty, but backed
by a lot of data, gives
reliable conclusions.

Induction can expand

knowledge so is a
basic tool of science.

i.e. data is always finite

so theories are always
subject to verification.
Uncertainty
 Estimation
Astronomers often use estimation or order of magnitude
calculations in their work. Often it is not possible, or even
necessary, to derive very accurate numbers. And this is
particularly true in astronomy where the objects under
consideration are usually extremely faint and very remote.

X 10 Accuracy For most exploratory

calculations
X 2 Accuracy For most numbers in
cosmology
10% Accuracy For the best-measured
parameters
 Science Limitations

Uncertainty, imprecision, and error arise three different ways:

CONCEPTUAL Making a false premise, confusing

correlation with causation, inferring a
pattern where none is present

MACROSCOPIC There is no such thing as perfect data.

Every data set is limited and every
instrument has limitations

MICROSCOPIC Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle sets

a fundamental limit to precision for
measurement of particle position and
velocity, or energy and time
Quantum Universe
Quantum Universe
 Cause and Effect
It would be difficult to make sense of the world if we did not believe
in cause and effect, that things do not happen without a reason.
 Determinism
On the other hand, the universe does not work like a machine or like
clockwork, where everything is perfectly and completely predictable.
 Correlation
X

No correlation?
Linear correlation?
Non-linear correlation?

Y
 Causation

Correlation need not imply causation; underlying variable is time

THE COIN

Heads Both Tails

Neither
 Some events are individually unpredictable, but
the statistical average is still very well determined

The roll of a single die It is impossible to predict

is unpredictable; each when any single atom will
outcome has 1/6 odds undergo radioactive decay
of occurring each time
 Gathering a large number of random events, the
average properties of the system become clear

A pair of dice rolled many With a large number of

times will give a smooth radioactive atoms, half
distribution of outcomes of them will decay in a
particular time interval
Evidence

Evidence is:

• based on data

• reproducible

• quantitative

• not subjective

• never perfect
 The Importance of Evidence
• There is no science without evidence
• All assertions must be supported by data
• Every claim in science is subject to verification

Science is data-driven, so progress is made by:

1. Gathering more data GOOD!

2. Repeating the experiment BETTER!!

3. Someone else repeating the experiment BEST!!!

Here are observations
of Saturn made in the
first 50 years after the
telescope’s invention
(from 1610 to 1660).

Which one shows

the way Saturn
“really looks?”

Science progresses at
the limit of observation.
Scientists always want
more and better data.
All observations are
uncertain at some level,
due to limitations in the
measuring apparatus.
This is not really like an
“error,” as in a mistake.

Where is the star

really on the sky?

Multiple measurements
are needed to define
the uncertainty. Taking
more data gives a more
reliable estimate and a
measure of uncertainty.
EXPLORATION: 1 MILLION MILES
REMOTE SENSING: 1 BILLION MILES
FREE SAMPLES: 10 BILLION MILES
For 99.999999999999999999999999999% of the universe,
including all stars and all galaxies, the evidence is indirect.
Scientific Method
 Good Science
• Science seeks robust explanations for observed
phenomena that rely solely on natural causes.
• Science progresses by creating and testing models
of nature that explain the observations as simply
or as efficiently as possible.
Occam’s Razor (there may be more than one
explanation for set of data, choose the simplest)
• A scientific model must make testable predictions
that may force us to revise or abandon the model.
• Plus, the role of luck and persistence: Science is a
very human (so sometimes flawed) enterprise!

Theory : a model which survives repeated testing

THE ROLE OF THEORY

Theory of Too Much

Is

Current Theory

Theory of Everything

Isn’t
The Truth is Out There

X-Files Pilot (1997)

The Truth is Out There

X-Files Pilot (1997)

A Major Problem:

Science literacy is
low, around 10%,
and pop culture is
awash in all kinds
of pseudoscience,
magical thinking,
superstition, and
supernatural or
irrational belief
systems.
Information
 Bits of Information
Suppose you have a
piece of paper and
you want know
where the dot is.

With factors of two, No fold, 1 piece, dot could be

anywhere on the paper.
One fold, 2 pieces, dot is in
top half of the paper.
Two folds, 4 pieces, dot is
in top right quadrant.
folding the paper
over and over, or
dividing into areas
two times smaller,
you will home in on
the dot’s location.
Three folds, 8 pieces, dot is in Four folds, 16 pieces, dot is Five folds, 32 pieces, dot is 1
the top right corner. left of top right corner. down, 1 left of the corner.

EACH NEW STEP IS A “BIT” OF INFORMATION

 Digital Information
A binary digit, or bit of information is the
simplest division to make: on/off, loud/soft,
black/white, hot/cold, or done in math, 1/0.

As the number of division increases,

more bits, the information improves.

The math uses a

base 2, or binary
counting system.

Why do we do this? The basis of modern

electronics is the rapid switching on and
off of current, a billion times per second.
 Measuring Information

KB = 103 bytes
MB = 106 bytes
GB = 109 bytes (1 byte = 8 bits)
TB = 1012 bytes
PB = 1015 bytes
EB = 1018 bytes

1 kilobyte (KB) One type-written page

1 megabyte (MB) A short novel
1 gigabyte (GB) Pickup truck of books
1 terabyte (TB) 50,000 trees to paper
10 terabytes U.S Library of Congress
1 petabyte (PB) All research libraries
100 petabytes All printed material
1 exabyte (EB) All the new info in 2010
10 exabytes All words ever spoken
 How Much Information?
1 bit (21) 50% precision 2 items
2 bits (22) 25% precision 4 items
3 bits (23) 13% precision 8 items
4 bit (24) 6% precision 16 items
…
10 bits (210) 0.1% precision 1024 items
20 bits (220) 0.0001% precision 1,000,000 items
…
60 bits (260) 10-18% precision 1021 items

A factor of 10 in scale is 1/log2 = 3.3 bits of information. Just 60

bits of information or yes/no decisions can specify the position
of the dot on the paper down to the level of a single cellulose
molecule or count the stars in 60 billion galaxies in the cosmos.
BITS
The History of Information
1018 Early life:
0.01 bits/yr
1014
Humans:
1 bit/yr
1010
Books:
106 1013 bits/yr

Digital:
102
1019 bits/yr

4.6 billion 3.5 billion 5000 yrs Now

Moore’s law and its network bandwidth equivalent are at

about 1 Gigabit (109) per second, but project to 1 Petabit
(1015) per second in 2030, the capacity of the human brain.
WHAT IS AND ISN’T

Imaginable

Possible

Is

Isn’t
Ancient Astronomy

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 The Role of Astronomy

What did ancient civilizations use astronomy for?

• daily timekeeping
• tracking the seasons and calendar
• monitoring lunar cycles
• monitoring planets and stars
• predicting eclipses
• and much more…

The sky was a map, a clock , a

calendar, and a book of stories
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Gibbon bone, Central Africa, 35,000 B.C.

We are anatomically and

developmentally modern
since ~38,000 years ago.
The very oldest human
artifacts are devices for
keeping a lunar calendar.
Cave paintings, Lascaux, 15,000 B.C.
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 Sky Observations in a Year

1 Patterns in the Sky

Motions in the Sky
2 The Circling Sky day
> the rotation of the Earth about its axis
3 The Reason for Seasons year
> the Earth’s orbit around the Sun
4 Precession of the Earth’s Axis
> the wobbling of Earth’s axis
5 The Moon, Our Constant Companion month
> the Moon’s orbit around the Earth
6 The Ancient Mystery of the Planets week
> the various planets’ orbits
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France: Cave paintings from 18,000 B.C. may suggest
knowledge of lunar phases, helpful in hunting (29 dots)

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Ancient people of central Africa (6500 B.C.)
could predict the seasons from the orientation
of the crescent moon near the western horizon

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Egyptian obelisk: shadows tell time of day/year.

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England: Stonehenge (completed around 1550 B.C.)

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Stonehenge
Stonehenge
England: Stonehenge (completed around 1550 B.C.)

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Germany: Nebra sky disk, high status object (1600 B.C.)
Yucatan, Mexico: Mayan Observatory at Chichen Itza (~800 A.D.)

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The “serpent” at Chichen Itza

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United States: “Sun Dagger” marks solstice/equinox (~1000 A.D.)

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South Pacific: Polynesians were skilled in art of celestial navigation

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 "On the Jisi
day, the 7th day
of the month, a
big new star
appeared in the
company of the
Ho star."

"On the Xinwei day the

new star dwindled."

Bone or tortoise shell inscription from the 14th century BC.

China: Earliest known records of supernova explosions (1400 B.C.)

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 The Antikythera Mechanism

Found in a shipwreck off the coast of Greece in 1900, this has

been labeled the “Mona Lisa” of mechanical artifacts. It dates
back 2100 years and is an early version of an analog computer.
The device is made of brass,
had 76 gears, predicted Sun,
Moon and planet positions,
and eclipses, and could track
non-linear sky motion. It was
probably inspired by a design
handed down by Archimedes.
Engineering in 100 B.C.
Engineering in 100 B.C.
Calendars
Can you answer all these questions about
timekeeping and features of the calendar?
• Why does the year begin on January 1?
• Why are there 7 days in a week?
• Where do the names of the days come from?
• Why are there 24 hours in a day?
• Why are there 60 minutes in an hour?
• Why is February the only short month?
• Why do analog clocks go clockwise?
• Why do Arab flags include a crescent Moon?
• What is the origin of Halloween and April Fools?
• Why are month lengths hard to remember?
• Where do the last© four month
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Days of week were named for Sun, Moon, and visible planets

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 Our “Modern” Calendar

Time Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total
Frame Days
Janus Februa Martius Aprilus Maius Junius Quintils Sextilus Septum Octo Nove Decem
Gods
(doors) (purify) (war) (beauty (spring) (women (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)
& #s
Romulus 31 30 31 30 31 30 30 31 30 30 304
(7th BC)
Pompilus 25 25 354
(6th BC)
Priscus 29 28 31 29 31 29 31 29 29 31 29 29 355
(6th BC)
Caesar 31 29 31 30 31 30 31 30 31 30 31 30 365
July
(44 BC) Leap year

Augustus 31 28 31 30 31 30 31 31 30 31 30 31 365
August
(8 BC) Leap year

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 “Rational”
Calendar
(Napoleon)
 Greek Science
Differing views on life in the universe:

“There are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world
of ours… we must believe that in all worlds there are living
creatures and plants and other things we see in this world.”

Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) “Letter to Herodotus”

“The world must be unique… There cannot be several worlds.”

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) “de Caelo”

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The Birth of Science
The Birth of Science
 The Ancient Greeks, with a strong civic
society yet no technology, came up with:
• Philosophy, logic, the scientific method

• Systems of government, law, the city state

• New ideas in theater, music, and medicine

• Geometry, algebra, infinity, irrational numbers

• Ideas of the round Earth, heliocentric universe

IMPRESSIVE…
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Our mathematical and scientific heritage originated with
the civilizations of the Middle East

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 Why does modern science trace its roots to
the ancient Greeks?
• Greeks were the first
people known to make
models of nature.
• They tried to explain the
patterns in nature without
resorting to myth or the
supernatural.
• They applied math and
logic to explanations of
natural phenomena
Greek geocentric model (c. 400 B.C.)
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Special Topic: Eratosthenes measures the Earth (~240 B.C.)

Measurements:
Syene to Alexandria
distance ≈ 5000 stadia
angle = 7°

Calculate circumference of Earth:

7/360  (circum. Earth) = 5000 stadia
 circum. Earth = 5000  360/7 stadia ≈ 250,000 stadia

Compare to modern value (≈ 40,100 km):

Greek stadium ≈ 1/6 km  250,000 stadia ≈ 42,000 km

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 How did the Greeks explain planetary motion?
Underpinnings of the • Earth at the center of the universe
Greek geocentric model: • Heavens must be “perfect” : objects
moving on perfect spheres or along
perfect circles (cf. Pythagoras)

Plato Aristotle
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 But this made it difficult to explain the
apparent retrograde motion of planets…

For example: Over a period of 10 weeks in 2003, Mars appeared

to stop, back up, then go forward again relative to the fixed stars.
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 The most sophisticated
geocentric model was
that of Ptolemy (A.D.
100-170) — called the
Ptolemaic model:
• Sufficiently accurate to
remain in use for 1,500
years. But needed up to
47 offset spheres just to
explain motions of only
7 celestial objects!
• Arabic translation of
Ptolemy’s work named
Ptolemy Almagest (“the greatest
compilation”)
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 Copernican Revolution
• Proposed the Sun-centered model
(published on his death in 1543)
Copernicus (1473-1543)
• Used model to determine layout of
solar system (planetary distances
in Earth-Sun units, or A.U.)

But . . .

• The model was no more accurate

than Ptolemaic model in predicting
planetary positions, because it still
used perfect circles.
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 Copernicus’ Heliocentric Model
• Sun is at the center
• Earth orbits like any
other planet
• Inferior planet orbits
are smaller
• Retrograde motion
occurs when we “lap”
Mars and all the other
superior or outer
planets But, the stars must be very far away to see no
stellar parallax, plus, we feel no rapid motion!
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Why was replacing this… ...with this so revolutionary?

In part, because moving the Earth from the center of

creation challenged culture, religion, and our self-image.
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 Why was the appearance of stars (brightness and parallax) such a key
distinction between the geocentric and heliocentric models?

In the geocentric model the distance to all stars is constant, so they never
change their brightness or relative positions (parallax), but in the heliocentric
model this is only true if the©stars are much
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Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)

• Compiled the most accurate (one

arcminute) naked eye measurements
ever made of planetary positions.
• Still could not detect stellar parallax,
and thus still thought Earth must be at
center of solar system (but recognized
that other planets go around Sun)
• Hired Kepler, who used his cumulative
observations to discover the truth about
planetary motion (orbits are elliptical).

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 Kepler
• Kepler first tried to match Tycho’s
observations with circular orbits
• But an 8 arcminute (1/4 of the Moon’s
apparent size on the sky) discrepancy
led him eventually to ellipses…

“If I had believed that we could have

ignored these eight minutes [of arc],
I would have patched up my
hypothesis accordingly. But, since it
was not permissible to ignore, those
Johannes Kepler
eight minutes pointed the road to a
(1571-1630)
complete
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Kepler’s First Law
Kepler’s Second Law
Kepler’s Third Law
Revolving and Attracting
Revolving and Attracting
 Galileo
Galileo (1564-1642) is considered the
first modern experimental scientist. He
overcame several major objections to
the Copernican view. Three objections
rooted in the Aristotelian view were:

1. Earth could not be moving because

objects in air would be left behind.
2. Non-circular orbits are not “perfect”
as the heavens should be.
3. If Earth were really orbiting Sun,
we’d detect stellar parallax, or the
seasonal shift in star positions.
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Galileo
Galileo
Overcoming the first objection (nature of motion):

Galileo’s experiments showed that objects in air would

stay with a moving Earth, the concept of “inertia.”

• Aristotle thought that all objects naturally come to rest.

• Galileo showed that objects will stay in motion unless a force
acts to slow them down (Newton’s first law of motion).

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Gravitational Acceleration
Gravitational Acceleration
Overcoming the second objection (heavenly perfection):

• Tycho’s observations of comet and

supernova already challenged this idea.
• Using his telescope, Galileo saw:
 sunspots on Sun (“imperfections.”)
 mountains and valleys on the
Moon (proving it is not a perfect
sphere, but is geological).
 removing the celestial/terrestrial
distinction motives the concept of
“many worlds.”
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 Galileo also saw four
moons orbiting Jupiter,
proving that not every
object orbits the Earth…

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Overcoming the third objection (parallax):

• Tycho thought he had measured stellar distances, so

lack of parallax seemed to rule out an orbiting Earth.
• Galileo showed stars must be much farther than
Tycho thought — in part by using his telescope to see
the Milky Way is made of countless individual stars.
 If stars were much farther away, then the lack of
detectable parallax was no longer so troubling.

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 The Catholic Church ordered
Galileo to recant his claim
that the Earth orbits the Sun
in 1633. He died under house
arrest just outside Florence.
His book on the subject was
removed from the Church’s
index of banned books in
1824. By then astronomy had
shifted to northern Europe.
Galileo Galilei was formally
vindicated by the Church in
1992. A bit, ahem, late….
Galileo Galilei
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 g

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 Imagining space travel

Imagining life on other worlds

Newton (1661)

Kepler’s Somnium (1630)

Shoulders of Giants
Shoulders of Giants
 The Copernican Revolution

The history of astronomy displaces us from cosmic importance

People and Progress
People and Progress
Awareness of the Universe
Awareness of the Universe
Powers of Ten

Cosmic Voyage (1996)

Powers of Ten

Cosmic Voyage (1996)