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Lecture 01 - Introduction
Syllabus
You can get a copy of the syllabus from:

1. Angel Online System

2. Course webpage:
http://ast104.posterous.com
 Summary

1. Size of the Universe

2. SI System of Units
3. Powers of Ten
1. Size of the Universe
Measuring Distance: The Speed of Light

Around the Earth:

7 Times in 1 Second

To the Moon: 1.3 Seconds

The Sun: 8 Minutes
Jupiter:
40 Minutes
Pluto: 5 Hours
The Closest Stars: 4.3 Years
The center of the Milky Way Galaxy:
30 Thousand Years
The Andromeda Galaxy:
2 Million Years
The Virgo Cluster:
60 Million Years
The Distant Universe:
Billions of Years
2. SI System of Units
We can measure length using various units.

For example:
Millimeters
Inches
Feet
Yards
Meters
Miles
Furlongs
To avoid confusion, scientists have an agreed system of
units for all measurements.

This system is called the SI system

SI is from the French “Système international d'unités”

Most scientific measurements are made using these

units to ensure experiments are consistent and
reproducible.
Some examples of SI units:

Name Unit Symbol Quantity

meter m Length
kilogram kg Mass
second s Time
ampere A Electric current
kelvin K Temperature
mole mol Amount of a Substance
Measurements made using non-SI units can be
converted into SI units.

For example, the distance light travels in 1 year is often

called the light year, and used as a measurement of
distance.

1 light year is approximately

9,460,528,405,000,000!meters
3. Powers of Ten
Scientists often have to work with large numbers.

For example, working with light years in meters would

quickly become tedious when writing out the full
numbers.

To avoid this, scientists use a shorthand for writing

large numbers called scientific notation.
The distance of 1 light year;
9,460,528,405,000,000!meters

can be rewritten as:

9.461 x 1015 meters

This is a much more convenient way to write and

calculate using large numbers.
Scientists also use prefixes to indicate powers of ten,
also known as orders of magnitude.

For example, a kilogram is a thousand grams, or 103

grams.

A kilometer is a thousand meters, or 10 3 meters

So kilo means 1 thousand or 103 times a quantity.

Here is a list of the most commonly used prefixes,
many of which you may see during this course:

Name kilo- mega- giga- tera-

Symbol k M G T
Factor 10 3
10 6
10 9
10 12

Name milli- micro- nano- pico-

Symbol m μ n p
!3 !6 !9 !12
Factor 10 10 10 10