**This course will be taught on Zoom**
This non-technical, non-mathematical introduction to some of the most awe-inspiring ideas from the work of Albert Einstein is designed for people with little or no science background. You will come away from this course with a new appreciation of the physical world and its behavior under extreme conditions. You’ll also see why Einstein’s theories continue to fascinate both scientists and science fiction fans today. Our goal is to give a concise overview of Einstein’s ideas, and the way that science (especially astronomy) has confirmed the predictions of his theories. Along the way you will come to understand such weird notions as: why there is no universal “now,” how space itself can warp, realistic time travel, how giant black holes can form in space, and the existence of gravity waves (whose discovery got the Nobel prize a few years ago.)
TOPICS (some may take more than a week, some less):
1. The Life and Time of Albert Einstein (plus a history of the idea of relativity and why a new theory was needed)
2. Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity: weird clocks and shrunken rulers, how mass and energy can be interchangeable, and space travel
3. Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (A New View of Gravity): the analogy of the ant & the rubber sheet, eclipses and warped space
4. Black Holes: Star Corpses and Space Warps: how astronomers showed Einstein was right by looking in unexpected places
5. Gravity Lenses, Time Machines, & Wormholes: the implications of Einstein’s science and some good science fiction they inspired
6. Gravity Waves: Einstein Triumphant: the mind-boggling LIGO experiment, black holes that eat each other; plus Einstein explains the expanding universe
