Cosmology - The End of the Universe (Part I)

OPENING QUESTIONS: Let's reach into the far, far future-- the 'Black Hole Era' (about 1040 - 10100 years!). What might humanity or the human existence look like in that far distant time?)

OBJECTIVE:  I will review "The Last Question" 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 asdf

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

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

        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!) s

WORK O' THE DAY: 

Once Upon A Proton, questions? comments? concerns?

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My favorite science fiction author when I was in high school was Isaac Asimov.

He was one of the most (if not THE most) prolific author in American history and he had a life-long love of science and science fiction.

He published his first short story ("Marooned Off Vesta") when he was still in college.

By all accounts he was flat out brilliant and obtained a chemistry degree from Columbia University (1939), then his masters in chem (1941) and then his doctorate (Phd), also from Columbia (1948-- after serving in the war effort) in biochemistry after that.

Take a gander at the list of writing accomplishments, it's pretty astounding!

Having said all of that, his personal reputation has lost some of its luster (he died in 1992) as more and more instances of his inappropriate behavior towards women became known.

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Asimov wrote "The Last Question" in 1956.

I read it my junior year in high school and was absolutely blown away-- it is my favorite short story of all time and I'm not alone. Asimov himself considered it his best work, and many of his contemporary and even later sci fi writers praise it as one of the best of the genre.

We'll take as much as we need to read it, I hope you will enjoy it and see how seamlessly it fits into this part of our Cosmology unit.

Oh and you are welcome to write on the pages and/or keep the story if you like.