The Boulder Cosmology Group meets 6PM to 8PM for DVD lectures on the Second and Fourth Wednesdays of the month and reading discussions on Third Mondays at the Main Library. All meetings are free and open to the public. (Monday discussions are usually in the second-floor Flatirons Room and Wednesday lectures in the first-floor Boulder Creek Room). Dates and locations are subject to change. Changes from the normal pattern are noted below.
Note: While the library closes early because of the pandemic, keep up with the Wednesday Lectures on your own at home, and conference with Zoom for the Monday book discussions. We missed quite a few lectures in 2020. If you didn't keep up then you could still watch them on Kanopy. The links are in the 2020 Schedule. Remember you can Kanopy stream Great Courses lectures without affecting your monthly Boulder Public Library Kanopy quota.

See http://www.sackett.net/cosmologyAll.htm for a list of all meetings of the Cosmology Group since it began in 2003.

2022   Second and Fourth Wednesdays: DVD Lectures will resume when we are able to meet in the library's Boulder Creek Room.
When we can meet in the library we use an “interruptus” format: at any point during the lecture anyone in the group can say stop and ask a question and the rest of the group will attempt to answer the question before proceeding. We will attempt to cover two lectures in each meeting. If we don't have time the next DVD lecture meeting will start with the second lecture (and this schedule will be adjusted).

Expected Schedule with Monday book discussions flagged in bold:

January 17, 2022 Book Discussion: Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point, by Huw Price. Chapters 1 through 5.
Link to the book: http://sackett.net/PriceTimesArrow.pdf.

February 14, 2022 Book Discussion: Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point, by Huw Price. Chapters 6 through 10.
Link to the book: http://sackett.net/PriceTimesArrow.pdf.
QM Notes (without mathematics) from Dave: http://sackett.net/QuantumMechanicsWithoutMath.pdf.
A relevant Scientific American article from Chela: http://sackett.net/BeckerOriginsOfSpaceTime.pdf.
Note: This ^^^^ discussion is a week earlier than usual because of Presidents Day.

March 21, 2022 Book Discussion: Understanding Our Unseen Reality: Solving Quantum Riddles, by Ruth Kastner. Chapters 1 through 5.
Link to the book: http://sackett.net/Understanding-our-unseen-reality.pdf.

April 18, 2022 Book Discussion: Understanding Our Unseen Reality: Solving Quantum Riddles, by Ruth Kastner. Chapters 6 through Appendix C.

May 3, 2022 Memorial Celebration for Jeff Grove.
See http://sackett.net/JeffGroveMemorial.pdf.

May 16, 2022 Book Discussion: The End of Certainty, by Ilya Prigogine. First half (through Chapter 4).
Link to the book: http://sackett.net/End-of-Certainty.pdf. There are also copies in Prospector.
Bill Daniel Notes for Chapter 4: http://sackett.net/DanielEndCertaintyCh4Notes.pdf.

June 20, 2022 Book Discussion: The End of Certainty, by Ilya Prigogine. Second half (Chapter 5 to the end).
Link to a 57 page Prigogine paper on Poincaré Resonances: http://sackett.net/PoincareResonances.pdf, compliments of Peter.

July 18, 2022 Book Discussion: Chaos, by James Gleick. First half (Prologue through Strange Attractors).
There are copies of the book in Prospector. Any edition will do.
Answers for some questions that came up in the discussion: http://sackett.net/ChaosQuestions.pdf.

August 15, 2022 Book Discussion: Chaos, by James Gleick. Second half (Universality through the end).
An early (1993) Chaos paper by group member Mike: http://sackett.net/MikeJones1993ChaosArticle.pdf.

September 19, 2022 Book Discussion: Fearful Symmetry: Is God a Geometer?, by Ian Stewart and Martin Golubitsky (Chapters 1 through 5).
Listen to this 48 minute podcast about the life and ideas of Emmy Noether.
Here's a link from Stephen with more information about the discussion on page 102 of face centered cubic structures.
Link to a PDF file of the book: http://sackett.net/GolubitskyStewartSymmetry.pdf.
Link to a DjVu file of the book: http://sackett.net/fearful-symmetry.djvu.

October 17, 2022 Book Discussion: Fearful Symmetry: Is God a Geometer?, by Ian Stewart and Martin Golubitsky. (Chapter 6 to the end).
Here's a link from Barry about Octonions and Symmetry Breaking.
Here's a link for Chapter 6 about the Lambda Cold Dark Matter model.
Link to a PDF file of the book: http://sackett.net/GolubitskyStewartSymmetry.pdf.
Link to a DjVu file of the book: http://sackett.net/fearful-symmetry.djvu.

November 21, 2022 Discussion: About Quantum Field Theory by Dave Peterson. Read http://www.sackett.net/AboutQuantumFieldTheory.pdf
as well as at least references [1] through [5] in that paper. Protons having been seen containing charm/anti-charm
pairs came up in the discussion and Susan later found this amazing article about that in the October 19, 2022 Quantamagazine.

December 19, 2022 Book Discussion: Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics, by Bruce Schumm. Chapters 1 to 5.
Study guide from Jeff. Renormalization note for page 80 (Chapter 4) from Bill Daniel.

January 23, 2023 Book Discussion: Deep Down Things, by Bruce Schumm. Chapters 6 and 7.
Study guide from Jeff. Notes from Paul and Chela on Lie Groups in Physics for Chapters 6 through 8.
The pages 19 to 21 of this document (errata and comments) were added for this 2023 discussion.
Note: This ^^^^ discussion is a week later than usual because of Martin Luther King Day.

February 27, 2023 Book Discussion: Deep Down Things, by Bruce Schumm. Chapter 8.
Study guide from Jeff. Notes from Paul and Chela on Lie Groups in Physics for Chapter 8.
Note: This ^^^^ discussion is a week later than usual because of Presidents' Day.

March 20, 2023 Book Discussion: Deep Down Things, by Bruce Schumm. Chapters 9 and 10. Study guide from Jeff.
A note from Mike on Chapter 9's coverage of the effective mass of a photon: http://www.sackett.net/PhotonEffectiveMass.pdf.
Comments on Jeff's Study Guide from Dave.

April 17, 2023 Book Discussion: More and Different: notes from a thoughtful curmudgeon, by Philip W. Anderson. Chapters I through III.
Reference: A 1972 Anderson paper, http://www.sackett.net/MoreIsDifferent.pdf.

May 15, 2023 Book Discussion: More and Different: notes from a thoughtful curmudgeon, by Philip W. Anderson. Chapters IV, V, VIII, IX, X.

For more information, e-mail Bill (bill4gb AT gmail DOT com) or call him at 3.449.4136.

This is http://www.sackett.net/cosmology.htm, last updated March 27, 2023.