These are always undergoing fine tuning, so be sure to download and study them afresh, right before the exams. There are purple slides in many of these; purple slides have material which is more advanced or supplementary, not material from which I make exam questions. Also, pay special attention to the RED SLIDE (key points) that ends each PowerPoint. These too are very important for studying for exams.
| Title | pdf's |
# Slides |
| Introduction to the Course, a few basics | - |
|
| Princples of Clear Thinking (and related website version for general classes) | - |
|
| On Teaching (website) | - |
|
| What is Life? | - |
|
| Discussion: "Life, Will We Know It When We See It?" | - |
|
| The Beginnings and Evolution of Life on Earth - The Key Moments and Puzzles | ||
| Eric Smith's Insights and Hypothesis: "Inevitable Life"? | ||
| Gaia or Medea - Does Life Insure Itself a Livable Long Term Planet? | ||
| How Carbon Moves Through a Planetary System, Implications for Life | ||
| Intelligent Alien Life and Their Civilization: The Thermodynamics of Civilizations - the Great Filter? | ||
| Life on Our Neighbors in the Solar System? | ||
| The Milky Way Galaxy and its Stars - Where might Life be? | ||
| The Bizarre Interstellar Object Oumuamua: Alien spacecraft? | - |
|
| Inflation, Accelerating Universe, the Multiverse, Why Our Universe is Life-Suitable | - |
|
| Advanced Galactic Life: Type I, II, III Civilizations and Observational Tests, SETI | ||
| The Drake Equation: Classic Simplified Early Version from Frank Drake (first half) | - |
|
| The Drake Equation - Modern Refinements from "Rare Earth" and other studies (second half) | - |
|
| Course Summary | - |
|
- |
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- |
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| Earth advanced life, Future Earth climate change and life, extinction | - |
|
| Life in the Universe (This is supplementary; from Astro 3) | - |