Last Assignments for Big Bang, Then What?
Following are assignments for the final class meeting of Big Bang, Then What?, Monday 3 May.
• Watch Crash Course Big History #6, Human Evolution
• Read the article "Journey Into the Americas", Scientific American, May 2021, sent to you by email on Friday 30 April.
• Watch Crash Course Big History #10, The Deep Future
• NOTE: All resources for the class on these two episodes, our eighth and last class of the course, are on this page. No additional materials are on the pages for Episodes 7-10.
• Before each class, check the appropriate episode page(s) for Assignments, things To Think About, More Resources, and the day before class, check Your Questions. To be sure that your own question or comment is considered for the upcoming Monday class, submit it at least 24 hours beforehand (Sunday morning).
Our course will not cover Episodes 7, 8, and 9, which cover primarily history as written by people. I promised in this course to focus on the history written by Nature in physical evidence that scientists try to interpret, for example, the light and other radiation from stars, and the sequences of our genes. I invite you to watch these episodes at your leisure, noting particular how the speakers continue to develop their most prominent theme: increasing complexity, particularly with society as a major driving force to greater complexity.
••••••
To Think About
• John Green refers to social and technological developments changing our physical and intellectual environment "faster than our genes can keep up." What does this mean to you? In what sense are our genes trying to "keep up" with the changes around us?
• What does John mean when he says we are "somewhat inbred"?
• Do you find the end of the Crash Course Big History series comforting? depressing? unsettling?
• Read this poem. What does it say to you about interpreting poetry? Think about interpreting poetry as it relates to finding meaning in your own life and in our universe.
• Really Deep Time: To help you picture the Universe beyond our time, go to the Cosmic Calendar, and imagine shrinking it so that is all fits into January, and the little white dot (that's us!) that sits at what is now December 31 sits instead at January 31. Then imagine another 11 months of the future. This expanded calendar would then encompass 166 billion years (12 times 13.8 billion). So you see where our little white dot would appear in the first 166 billion years of the Universe. Repeat the process with your new expanded calendar, which will put our little white dot near January 2 or 3, and thus show our tiny era in the context of the first 2 trillion years of the Universe (12 times 166 billion). Just two such expansions of Sagan's calendar gets you into the trillions. (Check my work, please!)
On the first or second of these expanded calendars, how far do you think the white dot (that's us!) will persist?
••••••
More Resources
• Up-to-date (for now, anyway) views and animations of human migrations throughout history.
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/global-human-journey/#human-migrations
https://legacy.calacademy.org//human-odyssey/map/
• "Journey Into The Americas", Jennifer Raff, Scientific American, May 2021, pp. 26-33.
Sent to you by email. A very recent review of evidence for human migrations into the Americas, written an by anthropological geneticist who studies human genomes to learn about human prehistory.
(Side track: Ever considered having your own genome sequenced to see what you can learn about your own makeup and history? Jennifer Raff has written actively about the wild claims and the realities of the genetic testing services that are available to consumers. Here is the first of a series of articles on the subject, "Genetic Astrology: When Ancient DNA Meets Ancestry Testing", Forbes, April 9, 2019. Click on Professor Raff's name at the top of the article to see other articles in the series.)
• Here is a more detailed and less frenetic look at the future of the Universe:
••••••
Your Questions
On every page of this web site is a form where you can contribute questions, comments, or suggestions. Any contributions that pertain to this page will appear HERE. Shortly before each class, check Your Questions for the episode(s) assigned.
