Welcome to the Astronomy 141 Lecture Podcasts. This is a brief message
from me explaining the podcasts, and welcoming new and old listeners.
University. Lectures will begin on Wednesday, 2009 Sept 23, and run
through Friday, 2009 Dec 4. New lectures will appear shortly before 6pm
US Eastern Time each day there is a regular class.
Recorded live on 2009 Sep 23 in Room 1005 Smith Laboratory on the
Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.
All content for Astronomy 141 - Life in the Universe is the property of Richard Pogge and is served directly from their servers
with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.
Welcome to the Astronomy 141 Lecture Podcasts. This is a brief message
from me explaining the podcasts, and welcoming new and old listeners.
University. Lectures will begin on Wednesday, 2009 Sept 23, and run
through Friday, 2009 Dec 4. New lectures will appear shortly before 6pm
US Eastern Time each day there is a regular class.
Recorded live on 2009 Sep 23 in Room 1005 Smith Laboratory on the
Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.
If we ever detect life elsewhere, how will we go visit? This lecture
considers the challenges of interstellar travel and colonization. The
problem is one of basic physics (the enormous energy requirements of
star flight) coupled with the vast, irreducible distances between the
stars. I will describe various starship concepts that use reasonable
extrapolations of current technologies (nuclear propulsion and solar
sails), ignoring for our discussions science-fiction exotica like
faster-than-light drives and wormholes. My interest is in the
scientific aspects of the problem, not an exploration of speculative
fiction. I then turn to interstellar colonization, and how even
a relatively modest star-flight capability might allow a determined
civilization to colonize the entire galaxy very rapidly. This has
implications for how we might interpret the results of Drake Equation
type arguments about the frequency of intelligent life in the Galaxy,
and leads to the Fermi Paradox that will be the topic of the next
lecture. Recorded live on 2009 Nov 25 in Room 1005 Smith Laboratory on
the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.
Astronomy 141 - Life in the Universe
Welcome to the Astronomy 141 Lecture Podcasts. This is a brief message
from me explaining the podcasts, and welcoming new and old listeners.
University. Lectures will begin on Wednesday, 2009 Sept 23, and run
through Friday, 2009 Dec 4. New lectures will appear shortly before 6pm
US Eastern Time each day there is a regular class.
Recorded live on 2009 Sep 23 in Room 1005 Smith Laboratory on the
Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.