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Free guide
A complete course
The Solar System, Properly
Secrets Of The Universe
For adults who know the basics and want the physics, the worlds, the impacts and the search for life
30 pages · about 20 minutes to read · PDF
Inside the guide
7 chapters, and what each one leaves you able to do.
- 01
Start Here: Meet the Book and Its Method
See what this course assumes you know, how long it takes and how each lesson builds on the last.
- 02
Measure the Speed of Light at Your Desk
Work out how fast light travels using a microwave, a chocolate bar and the standing wave in it.
- 03
Read a Light Journey Across the Solar System
Convert distances to light minutes and light hours and see how delay changes what you observe.
- 04
Work Out How Hard Each World Pulls on You
Calculate surface gravity from mass and radius, then predict your weight on each planet.
- 05
Build a Scale Model of the Solar System
Set planet sizes and orbits on one scale and see why most diagrams lie to you.
- 06
Run the Numbers on an Asteroid Impact
Estimate kinetic energy from diameter, density and speed, then convert it to megatons of TNT.
- 07
Fly Through the Atmosphere of Each Planet
Read temperature, pressure and wind from atmospheric structure, then judge what a visitor meets.
Look inside
Two real pages, set exactly as they print.
01
Start Here: Meet the Book and Its Method
See what this course assumes you know, how long it takes and how each lesson builds on the last.
By the end of this lesson you can say what the book assumes you already know, how its lessons link together, and how to measure or estimate a physical quantity yourself rather than take a number on trust. You need nothing from an earlier lesson, because this is the first one. Everything after this builds on the working habit you start here: turn every claim about the Solar System into a number you produced, or a number you can check.
This course assumes you left school with a working grip on arithmetic, fractions, percentages and units. You know a kilometre from a mile and a kilogram from a pound. If somebody writes 3 times 10 to the eighth, you read it as 300,000,000. You do not need calculus, and you do not need to remember any physics formula, because each lesson hands you the one it uses. Plan on roughly twelve hours across the five remaining lessons, most of it with a pen moving and a calculator open, and work them in order: each one reuses a measurement you made earlier, so skipping ahead leaves you guessing at numbers you should own.
The method is the same in all six lessons, and it has three parts. First, you establish a quantity from something you can observe. Second, you turn it into the quantity you actually want, using a stated relationship, so that a reader can follow your steps. Third, you state the uncertainty, because a measurement without an error bar is a guess wearing a suit. Work each lesson with a notebook, a calculator and a ruler, and keep the results in one place, since lesson 5 uses the model you build in lesson 4.