Welcome to the homepage for Physics 127: Space and Time. This course is based on Stephen Hawking's best selling book, "A Brief History of Time". The course deals with exciting topics in modern physics such as Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, Quantum Theory, Black Holes and the Creation of the Universe. Paul Hewitt's text "Conceptual Physics" is also used to fill in details about basic physics concepts such as energy, momentum, wave motion, atomic and nuclear physics that are necessary in order to understand the ideas in Hawking's book. You can read the syllabus by clicking here.

A term project is required for this course. The purpose of the project is to help you to relate the ideas encountered in the course to your own interests, hobbies or professional goals. Details about this project can be obtained by clicking on the highlighted text.

Stonehenge This page contains several photos of the Stonehenge monument taken by Dr. Hickey in the Fall of 1999.

Galileo's telescopes Pictures of the telescopes made by Galileo. Pictures taken by R. Hickey at the Science Museum in Florence, Italy

Views of the Universe. This page and the dozen or so pages that follow it contain lots of background about the geocentric and heliocentric models of the universe. There is also a wealth of information about Kepler, Galileo, Newton, etc.

Aristotle's views of the world. This page has a very nice description of Aristotle's views of space and time and his (incorrect) theories of how the world works.

Tycho and Kepler. Learn about Tycho Brahe and Kepler's Laws of Planetary motion.

Galileo's views of the world.. This page describes Galileo's approach to describing space and time. It contains some MPEGs for which you must have an MPEG viewer. But this page is useful even if you cannot view the MPEGs.

Newton's Laws and his view of space and time. This page follows with a description of Newton's Laws of Motion and his views of spacetime. More MPEGs

The Story of Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott. This is a story about creatures who inhabit a two dimensional world amd the problems they encounter when they try to imagine a third dimension.. This book may help you to understand the problems we three dimensional creatures have in dealing with the 4 dimensional world of spacetime.

Kepler. Lots of biographical data on Kepler can be found here.

Tycho Brahe. This site contains biographical information about Tycho as well as several pictures of the instruments he used to gather astronomical data.

Galileo. Lots of links to historical information about the life and times of Galileo Galilei.

Momentum and air bags A page that describes what air bags have to do with changing your momentum in a car crash.

Hawking's Universe. The home page for the pbs series of the same name broadcast in October - November, 1997. The page has lots of interesting information related to Hawking's" Brief History of Time".

Michelson-Morley Experiment. Lots of information about the experiment to detect the aether. The site also includes information about interferometers.

General Relativity. a discussion of the Principle of Equivalence.

Non-euclidean geometry. This site contains pictures of positvely and negatively curved space.

Precession of the perhelion of Mercury

Special Relativity You will find lots of stuff about Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and Black Holes at this location.

Spacetime and Relativity. A nice web page with lots of animation and descriptions of special and general relativity, some is simple and some a little more complicated.

Einstein on PBS This is the PBS web site that accompanies the 2-hour NOVA special on the life and works of Einstein which aired on October 1, 1996. This site contains a lot of very readable information about Einstein and the theories of Special and General Relativity.

Pictures of electron distribution in hydrogen atom This site contains computer generated pictures of the electron distribution in hydrogen atoms.

Black Holes Lots of information about black holes, including some movies.

Neutrinos. This page has information about the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Canada with links to some tutorials about neutrinos and how they are detected.

Particle Adventure. This site has a very nice interactive tour of the world of quarks, neutrinos and other elementary particles as well as the four fundamental forces in nature. There is also a wealth of information about the experimental methods used in contemporary particle physics. The site is highly recommended.

Asteroid 2000 SG344 Simulation of the orbit of Asterorid 2000 SG344. Will it hit the earth in 2030? Run the simulation and find out. You start the motion using the control panel at the bottom of the screen. You can also speed up the time and change your viewing location with the control panel.

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