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[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
DR. FREDERIC COURBIN: [? How ?]
[? is ?] the world are we living in?
How to study the universe using the only
information we receive from it, light.
The goal of this course is to provide an
overview of the physical concepts used
in astrophysics to analyze
the observations taken
by large ground-based
and space telescopes.
With these observations, the goal is
to imagine the physical mechanisms
responsible for light radiation
we receive from celestial bodies
and for their motion and to model them.
And of course, as always
in science, one needs
to confront theoretical
predictions to observations.
The material in this
course spans a broad range
of theoretical concepts, which
astrophysical applications play a role
at all temporal and spatial scales.
The course is organized as a voyage from
our solar system to the whole universe,
from stellar formation
to galaxy evolution.
To this end, we will use images,
demonstrations on the slide path,
focusing on the links between
theoretical concepts and observations.
My name is Frederic Courbin.
I am a researcher at the Laboratory
of Astrophysics of the Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology
in Lausanne, where
I split my time between research and
observational cosmology and teaching.
The course I propose here is
given to the students in physics
in their second year bachelor at EPFL.
It consists in the mandatory basis for
the more advanced astrophysics courses
but also allows students to see
physical phenomena they may already know
but in a completely different context.
Prerequisites are minimal.
They correspond to the knowledge of a
first year of university in physics.
They include trigonometry, simple
integral calculus, Taylor expansions,
and solving first-order
differential equations.
However, as we put much more
emphasis on the physical concepts
than on numerical
developments, the course
remains simple and
accessible to most of you.
I am looking forward to meeting
you very soon for this Introduction
to Astrophysics.
