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1955 Cosmic Times

This poster is the third edition of Cosmic Times, with the publication date chosen to coincide with Einstein's death. By the mid-1950s a number of astronomers had worked on fundamental questions about the universe, and there was no clear answer which was correct. In addition, the size of the universe got bigger, and we started to explore the universe with more than just optical light.

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• Teacher's Guide to the 1955 articles
• 1955 Lessons

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1955 Article Overview

Age of Universe: 6 Billion Years
Size of Universe: 4 Billion Light Years

Article	Thread	Summary
'Yardsticks' in Neighbor Galaxy Double Universe's Size	Size of the Universe	Observations by Walter Baade, under dark skies offered by wartime blackouts in Los Angeles, lead to a new calibration of the Cepheids, resulting in new distances to far away galaxies.
Origin of Everything: Hot Big Bang or Ageless Universe?	Expanding Universe	The debate rages between two theories for the universe: Steady State vs Evolutionary.
Sidebar: Hoyle Scoffs at "Big Bang" Universe Theory	Expanding Universe	Ironically, the name "Big Bang" came from its biggest detractor!
Death of a Genius: Albert Einstein 1879 - 1955	--	The world marks the passing of Albert Einstein.
It's a Star! It's a Nova! It's Super-nova!	Supernova	Astronomers discover there are novae and supernovae, and that there are two types of supernovae.
Radio 'Ear' on the Universe Being Built	--	Radio astronomy was in its infancy and opening up a whole new set of objects not visible to optical telescopes. Astronomers were building the next big radio telescope.

1955 Lesson Overview

Activity	Summary	Grade		Discipline
		MS	HS
The Evidence is Clear	Students consider observations and inferences to determine the support for each of two theories on the origin of the univese.		x	Physics, Astronomy, Nature of Science
Cosmic Jeopardy	Students will play Jeopardy! based on the articles in the 1955 Cosmic Times.	x	x	Physics, Astronomy
Big Bang Science Fiction	Students create a fictional narrative on the beginning of time.	x	x	Multi-disciplinary
Discovering 'Yardsticks' are 'Metersticks'	This lesson uses a simple discrepant event to demonstrate the underlying cause for early miscalculation of the size of the Milky Way galaxy.		x	Physical Science, Astronomy
Hubble's Law Mis-calibration Extension	This lesson is an extension of the Cosmic Times 1929 lesson "Determining the Universe" to reproduce a plot of Hubble's Law.		x	Physics, Astronomy