GEOL 208 Lecture 1: geol 208 notes
18 Mar 2018
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Universe totality of all space, time, matter and energy: age: ~15 billion years, formed by clumping together of gas and debris aftermath of big bang. Galaxies: there are billions of galaxies milky way contains our solar system. Earth = ~4. 5 billion years old: average don"t occupy special place in universe, 15000 km wide, humans discovered everything using scientific theory and scientific method. Scientific method/theory: scientific theory, must be testable, must be continually tested, should be simple and elegant, scientific theory can be proven wrong but never 100% right certainly, observation theory predictions. Earth centered universe: copernican revolution realization that earth is not the center of the universe, mayan observation many ancient civilizations studied the cosmos and to most our solar system = universe with earth as center. Celestial sphere: stars appear to be on inner surface of a sphere surrounding the earth, not the case but can use 2d spherical coordinates (similar to latitude and longitude) to locate sky objects.
