MOOC - Greatest Unsolved Mysteries of the Universe - starting 23rd June 2015
John Murrell
A MOOC on Greatest Unsolved Mysteries of the Universe (edX) is due to start on 23rd June 2015 see https://www.mooc-list.com/course/anu-astro1x-greatest-unsolved-mysteries-universe-edx?page=2
The synopsis for the course is :
Exploring the biggest mysteries of modern astrophysics.
Despite spectacular recent progress, there is still a lot we don't know about our universe. We don't know why the Big Bang happened. We don't know what most of the universe is made of. We don't know whether there is life in space. We don't know how planets form, how black holes get so big, or where the first stars have gone. This course will take you through nine of the greatest unsolved problems of modern astrophysics. We can't promise you the answers, but we will explain what we do and don't know, and give you an up-to-date understanding of current research. This course is designed for people who would like to get a deeper understanding of these mysteries than that offered by popular science articles and shows. You will need reasonable high-school level Maths and Physics to get the most out of this course. This is the first of four ANUx courses which together make up the Australian National University's first year astrophysics program. It will be followed by courses on exoplanets, on the violent universe, and on cosmology.
As usual with MOOCs they are free though there is usually a charge if you want a completion certificate.
You need to sign up before starting the course so you get notified of the starting dates and get a link to the course material.
In most MOOCs there is an active discussion forum where you can ask questions if you don’t understand part of the material.
Hope to see you there.
Regards
John Murrell
John Murrell
Just got some more details having signed up for this course:
Here is what we will be covering:
- The Expanding Universe
- The Big Bang
- Dark Energy
- Giant Black Holes
- First Light in the Universe
- Gamma-ray Bursts
- Dark Matter
- Solar System Formation
- Life in Space
Looks quite interesting hope it is easier than the MOOC on Plasma Physics and Applications !
John Murrell
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John Murrell
I was looking at the details for this MOOC. One of the Instructors is Brian Schmitt who received the Nobel Prize for discovering Dark Energy. Not often you get taught by a Nobel Prize winner for nothing !
In addition to this MOOC there are three other Astro related MOOCS which you can sign up to at any time ( so called Self-paced courses) Links to them are on the Brian Schmitt bio page at https://www.edx.org/bio/brian-schmidt
Of course with a self-paced course you have to be self-motivated as well. I am not sure how the support and discussion forums work in this case as in the MOOCs I have completed to date they are all on a time schedule so the discussions and help progress to follow the particular material in the course. Sounds as though I should do one of the self-paced ones to find out !
Regards