OBJECTIVE:  I will be able to demonstrate how cosmic red shift is additional strong evidence to support the Big Bang during today's class.

WORDS FOR TODAY:

• Planck Time (10^-43 sec after the Big Bang)
• CMBR ("Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation")

TIMELINE:

10^-43 sec: Planck Time- The farthest back in time we think we'll ever be able to describe with science & math

10^-32 sec: Inflation- The Universe expands *suddenly* faster than the speed of light (still too hot for light)

10^-6 sec: Fundamental particles form(but still too hot for light)

380,000 years: The Universe cools off enough for electrons to get captured to form complete hydrogen and helium atoms. (finally 'cool' enough for light to shine!)

WORK O' THE DAY: 

Now please take the list that you made for our opener and pass it to the person (clockwise!) next to you.

When you have your colleague's list, please add the approximate time period for each item on the list.

Let's review!

Pretend that you are an instructor at a local community college. You have a bunch of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed young folks who are VERY excited to learn about CMBR...

What would you tell them?

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Upcoming project:

Written/presentation/creative -- Your choice

Using your background knowledge developed during ALL of our coursework so far, follow the ENTIRE life a proton--- from the time it gets created <sometime, and yes, you should know when and how> after the Big Bang, through its time getting mashed in one or more stars, to the very end of the Universe.

Hints: BE CREATIVE. Having lots and various interesting objects your proton becomes part of, and how it gets attached or becomes part of those objects is Critical.

Creative Examples:

Cartoons work well for this project (1 panel for each stage in your proton's "life". So 12 - 14 panels)

A children's BIG BOOK (1 page per panel with very simple captions)

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Now please have a conversation about Doppler Effect...

Here's rather fun explanation of Red Shift for elementary students (I really do like it though)

Here's a bit more technical rendition -- we can see how the change in wavelength is used to determine the velocity of distant galaxies

Mr W Demo using a slinky. One of my freshmen (her mom's the school nurse by the by) came up with this demo years ago and it is a great visual. If you missed class today or you need to review:

Imagine holding on to one end of a slinky and having a friend holding the other end.

As your friend moves away, the slinky stretches... much like light waves do from distant galaxies... as they move farther and faster, the wavelengths of light stretch.... just like the slinky does. That's red shift.

Now imagine your friend moving towards you... the wavelength of the slinky decreases and its frequency increases... that's blue shift.

Before we mush on, let's visit the idea of a light spectra...

Take a look at these too images relating to hydrogen light...any thoughts?

Let's take a look at what hydrogen light looks like here in the classroom!

Sidebar: See that bright right line of red light? That is called the hydrogen alpha line (meaning that it is the brightest line of light produced when hydrogen atoms get excited.

That is also the type of light I filter with my H-alpha filter on my telescope. Why do I do that?

 

Let's do a quick sorting exercise with several color strips.

 

Now let's take a look at how we can put that information to practical use by taking a look at this activity to examine red shifts of distant galaxies.

Let's finish up graphing that data...

Now let's see how we might go about interpreting that data on the graph