Our Universe

 I have been fascinated while listening to and reading about the Universe since my childhood. But most of those readings have been random, organic in nature just like my readings on everything else - science fictions, detective novels, history, biography, cricket, soccer, and so on. The notable exception is Chess and Software Engineering which I have done pretty significantly in terms of method and volume. 

In 2015 I started reducing my overall time spent reading, learning, and playing chess (it was not an easy decision, believe me). That gave me extra time to focus on my pursuit of knowledge outside of my day job and family responsibilities. So I picked up first to understand religions and particularly Islam as I felt it's my duty to know in detail as a Muslim. About 3 years of reading, watching videos, enrolling in seminars on topics related to Islam, Comparative Religions, Atheism, and relevant topics - I felt like it's good enough for me to synthesize and reflect on what I found for the foreseeable future. So I switched next to learn about Leadership and Self Help to move towards an Engineering Leadership career. My particular area of interest has been Bay Area Software Startups although I have been learning all aspects of leadership and management that I possibly could find. And then recently, I picked up the journey to learn deeply about Philosophy. I am immensely enjoying all these.

While these are good, my childhood aspiration to learn about the outer space and vastness of the Universe has never died. I have been waiting for the right moment to dive into it. I feel like now is the time. I recently joined a few large online groups that focus on knowledge around deep space. I have prepared a list of things to know after surfing through those in the last few months. You may find the above youtube video useful as a summary although I plan to cover much more than what is mentioned in that video. While planning, I also bought Einstein's Relativity & Quantum Revolution, Stephen Hawking's A Brief Hisotry of Time and The Universe In A Nutshell. Below is a brief outline of what I plan to cover, which I will continue to update as I make progress. Would you like to recommend something to add this list?

1. Observable Universe

• Metric expansion of space

• Singularity

• Cosmic time or Cosmological time

• Horizon problem

• Flatness problem

• Dark Energy

• Dark Matter

• Fine-tuned Universe

• Multiverse

• Unseen Universe

2. Big Bang

• Inflationary Epoch or Cosmic Inflation

• Quark Epoch

• Hadron Epoch

• Redshift

3. Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR)

4. Anti-matter

5. Particle Horizon

6. Gravitational Waves

• Curvature of Spacetime

• Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity

7. Neutrino or Cosmic Neutrino Background (CNB)

8. Galaxy

• Dwarf Galaxy

• Ring Galaxy

• Irregular Galaxy

• Blazar

• Cosmic Ray

• Interstellar Space

• Galactic Helo

• Active Galactic Nucleus

• Starburst Galaxy

9. Galaxy Filaments

• Superclusters

10. Star Clusters

• Globular

• Open

11. Cosmic Void

12. Star

• Dwarf Stars - Red / Yellow / Orange / Brown / White / Black

• Variable Stars - Intrinsic / Extrinsic / Semiregular / Cephid 

• Blue Giant - Red Giant, Super Giant, Hyper Giant

• Neutron Star - Pulsar, Magnetar

• Binary Star

13. Solar System

• Asteroid Belt

• Sun

• Earth

• Terrestrial planet

• Gaseous planet

• Ice Giants

• Heliosphere

• Geospace

14. Planet

• Rogue planel

• Exoplanet

15. Gamma-Ray Burst

16. Fast Radio Burst

17. Black Hole

• Event Horizon

• Supermassive blackhole

• Micro blackhole

• Fabric of Spacetime

18. Nebula

• Protoplanetary Nebula

• Emission Nebula

• H II Region

• Reflection Nebula

• Dark Nebula

19. Supernova

• Type 1 vs Type 2

• Hypernova

• Supernova Reminant

20. Quasar

• Double quasar

21. Comet

22. Meteoroid

23. Satelite

• Sub-satellite or moonmoon