In 1543, Nicolas Copernicus published, "On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres", which began the first of three revolutions in cosmology. This is where we begin our eight week course--learning about some of the major players, discovering the unfolding universe, and making the case for modern cosmology, while addressing the mysteries of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Nicolas Copernicus o The Ptolemaic System o The Copernican Principle Tycho & Kepler o The Science of Observation o The Kepler's Three Laws - MU-21 o Harmonies of the World - Cosmos #3 Isaac Newton & the Kepler Problem o The Kepler Problem - MU-22 o The Rise of the Mechanical Universe o Inertia (Galileo) - MU-4 Miraculous Year (1905) o The beginnings of Relativity o The Beginnings of the Quantum Mechanics o From Kepler to Einstein - MU-25 Hubble and the Expanding Universe o The Mystery of the Milky Way o When we look out in space, we look back in time! o No Center Runaway Universe o The Ever-Expanding Universe o Dark Energy o Dark Matter Massive Black Holes are Major Players o Monster of the Milky Way o Galactic interactions The Big Bang: Putting all the Pieces Together o Origins: Back to the Beginning o WMAP: Foundations of the Big Bang theory o A Universe Hospitable to Life--What's Our Place? © Copyright 2012 - Samuel J. Wormley   by swormley1@gmail.com