The public video lectures cover just the astronomy content from the Astronomy Notes textbook. The public lectures do not include the material that is for the astronomy class such as how to use the class Canvas, lecture outlines in the Student Guide, exam review documents, etc. Students in the Bakersfield College astronomy classes should use the astronomy class lecture videos posted in the class Canvas to get that class-specific content.
This video set covers cosmology: the birth, evolution, and fate of the universe as a whole. It includes Olbers' Paradox, Big Bang Theory, curvature of the universe, fate of the universe, dark matter and dark energy. The video lectures are grouped together in the Cosmology Public YouTube playlist. Here are the individual videos for cosmology:
Video 1: (for first three webpages) This video lecture is about the nature and origin of the universe and how it changes over time—the field of astronomy called "cosmology". The first part of the lecture set covers Olbers' Paradox and how the expansion and start to the universe solve the paradox, and how we can determine the overall curvature of the universe (which determines the fate of the universe). First lecture for chapter 16 of Astronomy Notes.
Video 2: (for webpages #5 to #7) This video covers the origin of the universe as described in the Big Bang Theory. It covers the cosmic microwave background, fluctuations in that microwave background that later give rise to galaxies and galaxy clusters, evolution of the distribution of dark matter over time, and the creation of all of the matter we can see in the first few minutes after the Big Bang. Second lecture for chapter 16 of Astronomy Notes.
Video 3: (for webpages #9, #10, and #12) This video covers the fate of the universe, the various pieces of evidence for the existence of dark matter, and measuring the overall curvature of the universe which will tell us the fate of the universe. It includes a brief explanation of why we think there's dark energy at work in addition to dark matter. Third lecture for chapter 16 of Astronomy Notes.
last updated: June 28, 2022