Island Universes: Discovering Galaxies Beyond the Milky Way - Chris Lintott

Check out Chris Lintott discussing this lecture and your unanswered questions on our brand new podcast "Any Further Questions?' available on Apple and Spotify
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The discovery that we live in an ordinary galaxy, one of several hundred billion in the observable Universe, instigated a profound change in thinking about our place in the Universe.
This first lecture covers the Great Debate of the early twentieth century as new telescopes and new ways of observing the cosmos put our Milky Way in its place; and looks at how subsequent observations helped us understand how galaxies like our own formed and evolved.
This lecture was recorded by Professor Chris Lintott on 13 September 2023 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London
Chris is Gresham Professor of Astronomy.
He is also a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, and a Research Fellow at New College.
www.gresham.ac.uk/speakers/pr...
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/g...
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[@user-wr4uz8pg7m]

Fantastic presentation by this great speaker. Looking forward to many more! Thanks to Gresham College for making this possible. What a wonderful time to be alive.

[@rogerpancake6803]

What a brilliant communicator Chris is ..engaging,funny ,irreverent ..his lectures are fantastically entertaining. Thanks Chris

[@GreshamCollege]

Chris joined us for a Q&A session as part of our new podcast 'Any Further Questions?' to answer all the unanswered questions we had during this lecture. Listen to it on all major podcast providers from Monday 25th September!

[@imacmill]

There are more shuffle states of a standard deck of playing cards than there are grains of sand on Earth. I tell you this for no particular reason at all.

[@DmitryKissov]

Patrick Moore is smiling.

[@aethellstan]

weird i know but i still miss him when i watch sky at night. i still remember various episodes towards the end when he woud say every now and again "but i won't be around to see it" when talking about the various probes etc popping out to planets.

[@rebanelson607]

Mind blowing!

[@rhoddryice5412]

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

[@JJONNYREPP]

Island Universes: Discovering Galaxies Beyond the Milky Way 1641pm 14.9.23 and that, my friend, is the threat.................................. no need to cover it (alien life) as the various news media agencies are having a news conference with reference to that with NASA... or what allegedly passes for NASA. nice to hear Chris Lintott, on occasion, without him being censored by the attendant religious bodies hellbent on censoring the facts of the matter... speaking as another billy no mates type (of the male persuasion) he's basically talking about background noise, temperature and distance. which is something which you need to be come to terms with.. this vastness... as there are surely other aspects of the universe which need to be clarified. you're the metaphorical educated carrots and yer coming up with nothing new. i am learning nothing. learnt far more off my own bat... he's basically encompassed the entire back catalogue of the sky at night tv show in one chat.

[@chrislintott1]

That may have been in my mind...

[@JJONNYREPP]

@@chrislintott1 Island Universes: Discovering Galaxies Beyond the Milky Way 1731pm 14.9.23 !!??....!? and that, my friend, is the summation of the universe and all that we (need to) know... a vague notion regards something not being quite right out there or we're not being kept abreast of the matter at hand... it is another man's passion (your subject) but does concern us all.... i was wondering if his nibs, CL, will be chomping at the bit to cadge a lift on one of those private rockets being utilized to cast people into near space.....?

[@matthawkins4579]

Gotta love a "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" quote.

[@user-ol2mr4bx7c]

We love Chris

[@raduionescu2691]

it worked and it was delicate. the analogy

[@FrankMerton]

In addition to repeated statements of how big it all is, which of course is true enough, I would also like to see presentations on how empty it is. The speaker glanced at that with distances between stars, but there is also the emptiness of atoms and molecules, and whatever there is between the Plank scale and protons. If inflationary theories are correct, there also must be incredible distances between each bubble.

[@chrislintott1]

More cosmology in lecture six, I think. I like the fact that if you travelled to the edge of the observable universe from the top of the Earth's atmosphere with your hand outstretched to catch whatever you encountered, you'd be lucky if you got two hydrogen atoms...

[@kidmohair8151]

ah. but is it? my understanding of the current proposal for the universe on the extremely small scale is that it is awash with energy fields, with vibrations that we perceive as subatomic particles, that then go onto to form, eventually, the structures that we see all around us. indeed, that we are nothing more than agglomerations of those fields, mutually attracted to or repelled from each other, that look like us.

[@FrankMerton]

It may be that it's a far stretch to define a field like that.

[@FrankMerton]

I wonder if you argue just for the sake of arguing when the reality is so obvious. Don't pick just one small range and ignore the vast emptiness.

[@calmeilles]

If the entire mass of the planet was formed of grains of sand that number would be of the same order of magnitude as the estimates of the number of stars in the observable universe. So despite lacking precise numbers we're probably safe with that sars/grains thing. 😀

[@timholden6575]

Thank you for this eloquent discussion. I like to ponder rhat maybe each galaxy is just a molecule in the make up of that cosmic used car lot inflatable waving its arms...

[@BigDaddy-yp4mi]

Wacky inflatable flailing arm man!!

[@spacelemur7955]

What a time to be an astronomer, and even an interested layman. Of course, the same is true in most disciplines. Sadly, while science and technology are thrilling to many, we see a frightened backlash delving deep into religion, cults, and pseudoscience.

[@veganbutcherhackepeter]

Not only are there more stars in the Universe than there are grains of sand on Earth, but if our sun was a grain of sand, then our nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, would be a a grain of sand on another beach about 30 kilometers away.

[@rockets4kids]

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

[@billynomates920]

😊

[@mawkernewek]

Would it be useful to use New Horizons for parallax somehow, since it would have a much longer baseline than the 2AU available from Earth over 6 months?

[@chrislintott1]

I think you probably could; what a fun idea! Gaia would beat both though

[@GreshamCollege]

Hi! Thank you for the question! Chris gives a more detailed answer in the next episode of our podcast 'Any Further Questions?' which will be released on the 25th September.

[@rockets4kids]

14:50 Really? Let's meet for a pint!

[@toonmoene8757]

"A single island universe" - this was thought up by a native of Britain, probably ?

[@temptemp563]

He says the universe (beyond the observable) is big^big but does not say it is infinite. But is there any evidence that it is not infinite?

[@chrislintott1]

I think the best answer is there’s nothing we’ve seen that suggests it isn’t. More on this, maybe, in lecture 6.

[@andrewegan1732]

Space isn't big. We are incredibly small.

[@mellertid]

The Universe is big compared to anything. We are only small compared to some things.

[@paulstein6971]

Not an ordinary star! It is not a Red Dwarf Star.

[@spacelemur7955]

The meaning of the word 'ordinary' is not restricted to 'the most common'.

[@paulmccormick2442]

Everything is nebula. Circular arguement...