4.4 Modern physics

4.4.1 What are the four fundamental forces, in order of increasing strength?

 

 

 

4.4.2 Compare the force range for the nuclear, electrical, and gravitational forces

 

 

4.4.3 What are quarks? Neutrinos?

 

 

4.4.4 What is antimatter?

 

 

4.5 Observatories

4.5.1 Why we need a broad variety of observations?

 

 

 

 

4.5.2 Benefits from going to space

 

 

 

4.5.3 Benefits from large telescopes and interferometers

 

 

 

 

5. The origin of the Universe

5.1. Cosmology

5.1.1 What is the Cosmological Principle?

 

 

 

5.1.2 Why is the sky dark? What does that tell us?

 

 

 

 

5.1.3 What is Hubble's Law?

 

 

5.1.3.1 How does it relate to the age of the Universe?

 

 

5.1.3.2 How does it explain why the sky is dark?

 

 

5.1.4 What is the cosmic microwave background? What does it tell us?

 

 

 

 

5.1.4 What is a closed Universe? An open one? What is critical density?

 

 

 

 

5.2. Stages in the development of the Universe

5.2.1 Big Bang

 

5.2.2 Planck Era, GUT Era - what happened?

 

 

 

 

5.2.1 Unification of forces

 

 

 

5.2.2 Horizon problem

 

 

 

5.2.3 Flatness problem

 

 

 

5.2.4 Inflation and how it solves the horizon and flatness problems

 

 

 

5.3 Electroweak, Particle Eras -- what happened in them?

 

 

 

5.4 Era of Nucleosynthesis

5.4.1 Formation of helium, lithium

 

 

5.4.2 What was left over, and how much of the total mass it accounts for

 

 

5.5 Era of Nuclei

 

 

 

5.5.1 "Recombination"

 

 

5.5.2 Source of the cosmic microwave "3 degree" background

 

 

 

 

5.5.3 What we learn from structures on the cosmic background

 

 

 

 

 

5.6 Eras of Atoms, Galaxies

5.6.1 How do galaxies grow?

 

 

 

5.6.2 How dark matter increases the rate of galaxy collisions

 

 

 

6. Stars

6.1.      The sun and the workings of stars

6.1.1    Fundamentals

6.1.1.1 Elements that make up most of the sun

 

 

 

6.1.1.2 Temperature, output spectrum, solar constant, luminosity

 

 

 

 

6.1.1.3 Surface layers, layers above the surface

 

 

 

 

6.1.1.4 Granules, sunspots, prominences, solar wind, mass ejections

 

 

 

 

6.1.2     Solar cycle

6.1.2.1 Behavior

 

 

6.1.2.2 Cause

 

 

 

 

6.1.3    Source of the energy of the sun

6.1.3.1 How nuclear fusion works

 

 

 

6.1.3.2 Where fusion occurs in the sun -- and why there

 

 

 

 

 

6.1.3.3 How the energy gets out

 

 

 

 

 

6.1.3.4 Why the sun is so stable

 

 

 

 

6.2.      Other stars

6.2.1    Fundamental stellar properties

 

 

 

 

6.2.2     How the fundamental properties are measured

6.2.2.1  Proper motion and Distance

 

 

 

6.2.2.2  Luminosity

 

 

 

 

6.2.2.3 Temperature

 

 

 

 

6.2.2.4 Sizes

 

 

 

6.2.2.5 Masses

 

 

 

 

7. What happens as stars age?

7.1    The Hertzsprung Russell Diagram

7.1.1 The Main Sequence - and what causes it

 

 

 

 

7.1.2 What three properties determine the status of a star

 

 

 

 

7.1.3 How stars evolve on the HR diagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7.1.4 What happens inside the star while it evolves

 

 

 

 

 

7.1.5 How evolution depends on the mass of the star

 

 

 

 

 

7.1.6 Age of stellar clusters - how they are determined

 

 

 

 

 

7.2   The fate of the sun

 

 

 

 

 

7.3.    Deaths of stars

7.3.1 Why stellar death is important to understand

 

 

7.3.2 What forms do dead stars take?

 

 

 

7.3.3    Nature of white dwarfs

7.3.3.1 Planetary nebulae

 

 

 

 

7.3.3.2 What keeps a white dwarf from collapsing further?

 

 

 

7.3.3.3 Chandrasekhar limit

 

 

 

7.3.4    Nature of neutron stars

7.3.4.1 What keeps them from collapsing

 

 

 

 

7.3.4.2 Pulsars

 

 

 

 

7.3.5    Nature of black holes

7.3.5.1 How is a black hole defined?

 

 

 

7.3.5.2 What would it look like?

 

 

 

 

 

7.3.5.3 How do we "see" them?

 

 

 

 

7.3.6.      Novae and supernovae

7.3.6.1    Novae - and what causes them

 

 

 

7.3.6.2    Supernovae

7.3.6.2.1 Causes of Type I and Type II supernovae

 

 

 

 

7.3.6.2.2 How the supernova explosion proceeds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7.3.6.3.2 What is left of the star after a supernova

 

 

 

 

 

7.3.6.4 Supernova remnants

7.3.6.4.1 What do we find in supernova remnants? What is happening in and around them?

 

 

 

 

 

7.3.6.4.2  Where do the heavy elements come from?