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WEA Online Courses starting in September 2021

By Gurbir Dated: August 6, 2021 Leave a Comment

The two introductory courses below are organised by The Workers’ Educational Association (WEA), UK’s largest voluntary sector provider of adult education in England and Scotland. I will be delivering thee courses via Zoom in September. There is a cost but if you qualify that could be nil.

The New Space Age

The New Space Age

Introductory online course via Zoom. No prerequisite. Fee £64.00 or Nil.

Course dates 07/09/2021 – 09/11/2021
Ten sessions for 2 hrs per session every Tuesday starting at 7pm

Over the ten interactive sessions this course will provide an overview on:

Evolution of the space age from the beginnings with Sputnik to today
Outline the rich sources of services from space that shape society on Earth
The emergence of the private space sector in countries around the world
Space activities in India, China and Africa
Explore the concern of congestion in space from the growing number of spacecraft and the hazards of space debris.
The potential for the militarisation of space.
Humans living and working in Earth orbit. Returning to the Moon and beyond to Mars

Enrol Here


Explorers of the Cosmos

Explorers of the Cosmos

Introductory online course via Zoom. No prerequisite. Fee £64.00 or Nil.

Course dates 09/09/2021 – 11/11/2021.
Ten sessions for 2 hrs per session on Thursdays starting at 5pm

Over ten weeks the course will look at the life and work of the life and work of the following individuals

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543)
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) 
Isaac Newton (1643–1727)
Henrietta Swann Leavitt (1868–1921)
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Edwin Hubble (1899–1953)
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995)
Vera Rubin (1928-2016)
Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) 
Jocelyn Bell (1943 – )

Enrol here

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Explorers of the Cosmos – 6 Week Course starting 20 May 2020 online via Zoom

By Gurbir Dated: May 10, 2021 Leave a Comment

By popular demand – its back! Organised by the Workers Educational Association, 2 hours every Thursday between 5pm-7pm over 6 weeks starting on 20/05/2021. The course will examine the lives and contributions of six individuals who have made significant contribution to our understanding of the cosmos. In sequence they are

Henrietta Swan Leavitt 1868-1921
Albert Einstein 1879-1955
Edwin Hubble 1889-1953
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar 1910-1995
Stephen Hawking 1942-2018
Jocelyn Bell-Burnell 1943-


There are no prerequisites and no end of course eassessment. As before the course will be run as a Zoom meeting – so lots of interaction in addition to the Q&A at the end. Cost is £38.40 or free – check and signup here

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Episode 65: ISRO – The early years

By Gurbir Dated: December 5, 2013 1 Comment

URRoa
Prof. UR Rao

The Indian Space Research Organisation formally came in to being in 1972. By then, India had been developing its space program for almost a decade. The first launch to space from Indian soil was a two stage Nike-Apache rocket supplied by USA with a  sodium  payload from France. The rocket delivered a vertical trail of sodium vapour in space above the twilight sky of the south eastern coast of Kerala on 21st November 1963.

In this episode, professor UR Rao talks about his rich and diverse career. Professor Rao completed his Phd under Dr Vikram Sarabhai, then went on to work for NASA at MIT and in Texas exploring the Solar System with instruments on NASA’s Pioneer and Explorer spacecraft. He returned to India at Sarabhai’s request and after heading up the Physical Research Laboratory, in 1984 became the chairman of the Indian Space Research organisation. He served in that role until 1994.

During his 81 years, he has participated in many significant areas in space and science exploration.  Several key individuals associated with space and science research including CV Raman, Robert Millikan, Ed Stone, Arthur Clark,  James Van Allen , Abdus Salam and Vikram Sarabhai were individual he knew personally and some were colleagues.

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From Dying Stars to the Birth of Life – Book Review

By Gurbir Dated: February 12, 2012 Leave a Comment

Title: From Dying Stars to the Birth of Life: The New Science of Astrobiology and the Search for Life in the Universe
Publisher : Nottingham University Press
Author: Jerry L Cranford
ISBN : 978-1-907284-79-3
Price: £24.99 [237 pages hardcover]

Subtitled as “The new science of astrobiology and the search for life in the universe”, this is an abundantly illustrated book that attempts to cover the immensity of the universe and the minuteness of a living cell. The author establishes at the outset that he is not an astronomer. A now retired professor with years of experience in psychology and “brain sciences”, he brings his expertise of academia and research to his childhood passion of astronomy.

Astrobiology is a relatively new and still developing interdisciplinary field that studies origin and evolution of life throughout the universe. This book attempts to deals with some of the most poignant questions of Astrobiology that have faced humanity from the beginning. Where did life come from? What does it mean to be alive? Are we alone in the universe?  So dramatic are the developments in science and technology over the last half century that for the first time in human history tangible experiments can now be performed that have the potential to answer them.

The first half of the book takes the reader from the Big Bang to the emergence of stars, galaxies, and eventually supernovae that generate the fundamental elements to the complex compounds necessary for the development of life.  I found chapters 3 and 4 that described the constituent parts of living cells and how they work particularly interesting.

The final chapter is more rewarding than the title “Some final thoughts from the author” may at first suggest. In it the author turns to the question of why, in the technologically rich 21st century, science has been unable to provide a definitive answer to Fermi’s paradox – given that the universe is old and big enough to have nurtured life elsewhere than just that on Earth, why is it that life on Earth is the only one for which evidence exists?

Written in a somewhat unusual style, it has a freshness that readers new to the field may find attractive. The author jumps about between using the first and third person, variously talking about himself as “I”, “we” and “the author”.  He also uses “the present author” or “the present book” — why not simply “the author” or “the book”?    Initially oddities like these and others are a distraction, but they are relatively easy to get used to.

In the preface the author acknowledges support from many, including Seth Shostak from the SETI institute. Additional input like that from other specialists e.g. cosmologists, evolutionary biologists or planetary astronomers would perhaps have introduced a greater authority to the final product.

Many of the illustrations are sourced from the public domain, a welcome trend which I hope will flourish. This book lacked the typical highly formal scientific approach that an astronomer would have taken.  The author’s highly personal approach and an abundance of genuine passion for this subject is his unique contribution in this book.  If you wondered what astrobiology is all about, this detailed and enthusiastic review from a dedicated amateur is a good starting point to the current state of the subject.

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