hey it's professor Dave I want to tell
you about the universe of all the things
that make us human
it is perhaps our quest for knowledge
that defines us best we never seem to be
satisfied with the unknown always
searching always trying to make sense of
our surroundings and our place amongst
them one thing that has instilled Wonder
in us since the dawn of mankind has been
the simple act of looking up at the
night sky today we know quite a lot
about stars and planets and galaxies and
yet the site remains all inspiring but
imagine looking up at the night sky
thousands of years ago having no idea
what any of these objects could be what
are these distant points of light what
is the universe as a whole and just how
big is it is it truly infinite where did
everything come from including us these
are the grandest questions that humans
can dare to ask and from this perplexity
gnawing at us every time the Sun would
set was born arguably the first science
astronomy as we know from ancient texts
early astronomy dates at least as far
back as the first known civilization
Mesopotamia and probably much further
still these were times when there was no
distinction between science and
mysticism for this reason our initial
attempts at answering those big
questions about the universe comprised
nothing more than elaborate mythologies
campfire stories of creation and other
fiction we saw in the night sky a drama
unfolding much like the one that takes
place each day on earth and we projected
images of earthly figures onto the stars
while much of this activity was nothing
but the hubris of man on the grandest
scale it did mark what was probably the
first large-scale gathering of empirical
data we came to know the night sky
intimately every glistening star every
luminous object we charted their
movements and slowly became
able to predict their locations with
great precision
thus deciphering the Earth's seasons and
other natural phenomena while it would
be many centuries before we came to
understand what these celestial objects
truly are our journey of scientific
discovery was spawned of this nighttime
wonder naturally astronomy has matured
over the centuries
more recently birthing the fields of
astrophysics and cosmology which all
come together to represent our detailed
study of the universe considering where
we are at present in the 21st century we
have learned so much about the universe
that we have begun to answer even those
most fundamental questions about
existence we now have a very firm
understanding of how old the universe is
and we even know a lot about how it must
have begun to the non scientist this
claim seems absurd how can we know such
things how can we be so arrogant as to
even attempt to know them and yet we
have tremendous amounts of data to
support our current model of the
universe actual empirical evidence for
what we profess to know and once you
learn about astronomy the basis for this
knowledge can become quite clear even to
the layperson with no scientific
training in this series we will begin by
attempting to describe the basic
components of the universe in roughly
the chronological order in which they
formed that means energy and the most
basic constituents of matter first then
stars and galaxies then the planets that
came to orbit those stars and eventually
getting to more exotic objects and
concepts once we have covered the basics
producing a comprehensive view of the
history of the universe we will then be
ready to get into some trickier
specifics as we will periodically dip
into theoretical physics astrophysics
and cosmology throughout these tutorials
we will sometimes examine concepts that
are extremely complicated but we will do
our best to approach these topics in a
balanced way this means we won't go over
all of the math as it's just too much
but sometimes we will assume
rudimentary mathematical knowledge so it
may be useful to check out some of my
algebra and trigonometry tutorials if
you need a refresher we will also use
many of the ideas we discussed in the
classical physics and modern physics
series so if you want to maximize your
comprehension of these tutorials those
will also be important prerequisites but
if you just want to have some fun and
learn a few things about space don't
worry you can move forward now and if
something we are discussing seems
confusing you can always click on the
cards that appear in the corner of the
screen for more background information
whatever your reason for watching this
series once you're through
you will have a solid conceptual
understanding of the universe and
everything in it or as much as is
available to mankind at the present as
for the questions that remain maybe you
can help answer some of them and become
part of the story we continue to tell
about the dark expanse above us the
abyss of possibilities that holds the
future of mankind in its swirling glow
but enough with the poetry let's learn
some astronomy thanks for watching guys
subscribe to my channel for more
tutorials support me on patreon so I can
keep making content and as always feel
free to email me professor Dave explains
at gmail.com
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