Certificate of Achievement
has completed the following course:
Gravity! The Big Bang, Black Holes and Gravitational Waves
Paris Diderot
In a way accessible to everyone, this online course explored the universe of gravity, focusing on concepts like expansion, Big Bang, black holes, dark energy and gravitational waves.
6 weeks, 2 hours per week
Pierre Binétruy
Professor of Physics
Paris Diderot
George F. Smoot
Professor, Nobel Prize in Physics 2006
Paris Diderot
Transcript
Learning outcomes
- Explore the modern concepts underlying the fundamental aspects of the physics of the Universe
- Design thought experiments which illustrate the basic properties of the gravitational force in familiar (on Earth) or unfamiliar (on the Moon, in space or close to black holes) settings
- Discuss with other learners the most subtle or most unusual properties of space and time in the context of gravity
- Experiment with gravity using simple experiments in order to better identify the basic concepts
- Investigate complementary aspects of gravity by researching science magazines or the web
- Debate about the present controversies in the physics of the Universe using the concepts learned in the course and scientific reasoning
Syllabus
- The development of the theory of gravity from Galileo to Newton et Einstein
- An introduction to the principles of general relativity
- The acceleration of the Universe
- Big Bang theory
- The theory of cosmic inflation
- First light in the Universe: the cosmic microwave background
- The discovery of fluctuations in the cosmic background
- The scientific case for dark matter
- The acceleration of the expansion of the Universe and dark energy
- The notion of vacuum in quantum theory and in gravitation
- The physics of black holes
- Scientific debates around the status of information in black holes
- The discovery of gravitational waves
- Space missions associated with the theme of gravity
Issued on 9th April 2017
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