Outside Astro and Climate Lectures and Events - for Extra Credit Attendence
(This course is still early in its life. And, the subject is still filled with unknowns. The topics list below will likely evolve before we arrive at them!)
Wed Jan 31: Introduction, syllabus, bits of Ch 1, Chapter
0 - Principles of Clear Thinking and Scientific Method , On Teaching , Ch 3.5,4: Astrology as example of bogus pseudoscience connecting life and other planets. Zoom Recording
Wed Feb 7: What is life? How do we define it? Must it be carbon-based? (pdf) (Spr '20 Zoom recording) Watch this video on your own, for discussion next week.
Sat Feb 10: deadline to drop/add a full term course, and get refund for drops
Mon Feb 12: Census day, Instructor marks and returns Census
Wed Feb 14: Discussion of "Alien Life: Will We Know it When we See It?", and how we detect exoplanet atmospheric compositions (pdf) ( Spr '20 Zoom recording)
Wed Feb 21: History of the Earth and environment: Life, advanced life, and cellular energy mechanism. (Spr '20 Zoom recording)
Wed Feb 28: History of the Earth and environment: Gaia or Medea? Earth life and if/how it interacts with the planet to insure its well-being and survival.Life, advanced life, and cellular energy mechanism. .(Spr '20 Zoom recording) "Inevitable Life" video (Spr '20 Zoom Recording). Life's Rocky Start (PBS Nova program) show in class.
Wed Mar 6: Life on our Neighbors? Solar System life prospects. Climate Change and Life, also review our quiz "Alien Life" (Spr '20 Zoom Recording) (Birth of the Earth video quiz unlocks after class)
Wed Mar 13: Life's beginnings: Deep sea vents? Arguments for / against.
Wed Mar 20: "Gaia or Medea" lecture. Eric Smith video on "Life as Inevitable: Caused by energy gradient". And, on your own: "Looking for Life on Mars", (Spr '20 Zoom Recording)
Wed Mar 27: Spring Break - no class
Wed Apr 3:SETI; its history and current status, and how it interfaces with the Kepler Mission.
Wed Apr 10: The bizarre object Oumuamua - alien artifact? (Spr '20 Zoom Recording and second half Spr '20 Zoom Recording)
Wed Apr 17: Civilization as a thermodynamic system.
Thur Apr 18 - Last day to submit a W withdrawl. After this, student must take a grade
Wed Apr 24: The Inflationary Multi-verse, the Anthropic
Principle and self-selection, and thoughts and evidence on Divine Creation. Then, the Lifetime of Technological Civilizations - Is life "suicidal"? Or does it typically survive adolescence? (Spr '20 Zoom recording)
Wed May 1: Review of Multi-Verse and how it argues for existence of living universes. Then, the classic version of the Drake Equation, constraints from many aspects of Earth and life (Spr '20 Zoom Recording)
Wed May 8: Continue with classic and modern Drake Equation. History of the SETI program, arguments for / against intelligent life. (Spr '20 Zoom Recording) PDF
Wed May 15: The modern Drake Equation formulation, Ward/Branlee's "Rare Earth" considerations. Discuss how often does life it hit a roadblock and never reached complexity and eventual intelligence? . (Spr '20 Zoom Recording, PDF of the presentation)
Summary PowerPoint for the Course, focusing on the lectures not on the Videos we were already quizzed on. I'll draw on this to make your last course quiz
May 20-22 - Finals Week: Final Exam
May 24 11:59pm - Grade submissions by Instructors deadline
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Topics To Assemble (Instructor's notes, really)
* What is the definition of life? Is it defined by ingredients, or instead defined by behavior? Must it be made "naturally", or can it be made (e.g. AGI) by other more advanced agents and still consider it "life"? Must life be carbon-based to arise naturally?
* What are the probabilities of life to form? Does it require highly unlikely processes, or it is inevitable given reasonable planetary environments?
* What are the probabilities of life making it to cellular eukaryotic form, necessary for any possibility of complex, then intelligent life? Are there bottlenecks unlikely to be crossed?
* What is the lifetime of complex highly technological life? Is it generic that technological maturity is reached well before behavioral maturity is reached, so that essentially all "civilizations" can be expected to have a harrowing passage through adolescence where suicidal tendencies may end the technological phase?
* What are the basic principles which govern how life evolves, and will all life in the galaxy face a moment when genetic programming must be radically disobeyed in order to still survive on their finite planet?
* How likely is it that the next phase of evolution is to evolve "AGI" - Artificial General Intelligence - and that it take over the decisions and care of their makers? And what are the odds AGI creations will in fact further the advancement of their makers, rather than replace them?
* The Kepler Mission and the new statistics of planetary systems in the Galaxy. TESS, and follow up missions possible with JWT.
* The Fermi Paradox. De-coding the psychology and motivational framework of other intelligent civilizations.
* The bizarre object Omuamua and the case for it being a space craft from an interstellar civilization vs being a natural object.
* The Drake Equation - original form
* The Drake Equation - Additional terms given advancements in understanding since Frank Drake's formulation. Refinements from Peter Ward and Nolthenius.
* The Inflationary Paradigm and the self-selection nature of the laws of physics and compatibility with a living universe.
* Life - divine origin? Arguments to be brought to bear from information theory and self-consistency problems.