Released: 21 January 2018
Duration: 19 minutes
Download the .mp3 audio file
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| Henrietta Swan Leavitt, discoverer of Leavitt's Law |
A hundred years ago cosmologists were struggling to understand the nature and structure of the universe, and at the heart of this struggle was the island universe hypothesis.
Today we find ourselves confronted with a similar question posed at a far greater scale. As we confront these great questions of cosmology, whether a hundred years ago or today, we find ourselves faced with as many philosophical questions as scientific questions when we challenge the boundaries of our understanding. In Part I we focus on the original problems of constructing the cosmological distance ladder.
Links:
The Realm of the Nebula, Edwin Hubble
Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, Immanuel Kant
The Scale of the Universe, Shapley and Curtis
NGC 6822, a remote stellar system, Edwin Hubble
Stellar Movements and the Structure of the Universe, Arthur Eddington
Eternity in six hours: Intergalactic spreading of intelligent life and sharpening the Fermi paradox, Stuart Armstrong and Anders Sandberg
Credits:
Writer and Host: Nick NielsenProducer and Voiceover: Paul Carr
Music: Jason Robinson
