Understanding planetary habitability is key to understanding how and why life developed on Earth as well as whether life is present on planets that orbit different stars (exoplanets). Whether a planet could be habitable is determined primarily by the planet's climate. This lecture will address insights we've gained from studying Earth's climate and how those have been used to make predictions about which exoplanets might be habitable, and how astronomical observations indicate the possibility of new climatic regimes not found on modern Earth. Finally, the lecture will cover some questions about the future of humanity and the Fermi paradox.
Dorian Abbot is an Associate Professor of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. In his research he uses mathematical and computational models to understand and explain fundamental problems in Earth and Planetary Sciences. Professor Abbot has also worked on problems related to climate, paleoclimate, the cryosphere, planetary habitability, and exoplanets. Recently he's been focusing on terrestrial exoplanets and habitability. He has an undergraduate degree in physics and a PhD in applied math, both from Harvard University.
We study Cauchy induction, a beautiful modification of the usual induction. If traditional induction goes forward one step at a time, Cauchy jumps from n to 2n and then goes backward if he misses the needed number.
Josephus and his forty soldiers were trapped in a cave. This means that there was a total of 41 fighters in the circle. Let us number 1 the first fighter to raise his sword, let us number 2 the fighter to his right, etc. The goal of this lesson is to solve the following two problems.
Problem 1 What was the position of Josephus in the circle?
Problem 2 Suppose that there are n soldiers, including Josephus, in the cave. What should the position of Josephus be in order for him to stay alive?
The first hour will be a lecture by our instructor Natalie and me about hat puzzles. We invited other groups to listen. In the second hour, we will do the attached worksheet on hat puzzles.
