Table of Contents

AST 100: Our Cosmic History

1. Content

The course content is written as fictional dialogues between Socrates and his seven students who live in a fictional Barzakh.

Chapter Name Week Main character River
0 Seven Ages of the Universe 1, 2 Socrates
1 Particle Age 3, 4 Rabi Angsi
2 Galactic Age 5 Shashi Tsangpo
3 Stellar Age 6 Mars Siang
4 Planetary Age 8 Hermes Brahmaputra
5 Chemical Age 9 Juno Jamuna
6 Biological Age 10 Ishtar Padma
7 Cultural Age 11, 12 Rhea Meghna

2. Assessment

Type Assessment Marks Total
Continuous Attendance 10 40
Punctuality 10
Group work 20
Summative Midterm presentation 20 60
Midterm quiz 10
Final presentation 20
Final quiz 10

3. Reference books

  1. Eric Chaisson, Epic of Evolution, Columbia University Press.
  2. Thomas Arny and Stephen Schneider, Explorations: Introduction to Astronomy, McGraw Hill.
  3. Fred Spier, Big History and the Future of Humanity, Wiley.
  4. Jay M. Pasachoff and Alex Filippenko, The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium, Cambridge University Press.
  5. David Christian, Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History, University of California Press.