ASTR 1020 Spring 2012: Study Guide for Quiz #6

Topics you should know and understand for Quiz #6 (not necessarily a complete list)

ASSIGNED READINGS FOR THIS QUIZ: Sections 26.4 - 26.7; Chapter 27; Chapter 28

1) DEFINITIONS: Critical Density; The Cosmological Constant; Lookback Time; Olber's Paradox; The Observable Universe; The Big Bang; Pair Production; Baryon; Baryonic Matter; Dark Matter; Cold Dark Matter; Dark Energy; The Cosmic Microwave Background; The Steady State Theory; Primordial Nucleosynthesis; Recombination; The Inflationary Universe Model; The Horizon Problem; The Flatness Problem; Grand Unified Theories; The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

2) OTHER THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW: The shape of space for open, closed, and flat Universes; The resolution of Olber's Paradox; Why the lookback time of a distant galaxy is not the same as the current distance to that galaxy in light years; The scientific accomplishments of Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson; The steps in the main nuclear reactions in the early Universe, and how and why they differ from what is happening now inside Sun-like stars; The major events in the early Universe and when they occurred; How to get a limit on the age of the Universe from globular clusters; Three pieces of evidence for the Big Bang theory; What important property of the Universe is constrained by measurements of the current deuterium abundance in the Universe; How the baryonic density of the Universe is determined; How the total density of matter in the Universe is determined; What the horizon and flatness problems are, and how they are resolved in the Inflationary Universe Model.