About this course
Most people never get taught astronomy. They pick up fragments — a black hole here, a Big Bang there — and end up with a shelf of disconnected facts and a quiet suspicion that the real thing is only for people who are good at math.
Cosmic Zoom is the course that fixes that. It is one continuous trip: you start with the sky you can see from your own doorstep tonight, pick up the two tools that unlock everything else — light and gravity — and then sweep outward, module by module, through the Solar System, the lives and deaths of stars, galaxies, the dark 95% of the universe nobody understands, the Big Bang itself, and finally the two questions everyone actually wants answered: is anyone else out there, and how does it all end?
The rule throughout is that awe comes first and arithmetic is optional. Every enormous number arrives dressed as something you can hold in your head, and every piece of algebra is quarantined in a clearly-labeled appendix you never have to open.
Who it's for
If any of these sound like you, you're in the right place.
- The curious adultYou've looked up and wondered, watched the documentaries, and want the real thing explained properly for once — in order, from the beginning.
- The self-declared non-math personYou stopped doing equations years ago and assumed that closed the door. It doesn't: you can finish the whole course without a single calculation.
- The student who wants the storyYou're taking (or about to take) an intro astronomy class and want the big-picture narrative that makes the whole textbook finally make sense.
- The backyard stargazerYou like looking up and want to better understand everything you're seeing in the night sky, from constellations to the changing Moon and planets.
How it's built
How you teach it matters as much as what you teach.
Who's behind this
Cosmic Zoom was written by an ordinary person, not a scientist: someone with an average head for numbers and a lot of curiosity about the world and the universe.
Whenever a new discovery in astronomy made the news, he wanted to understand it. But looking things up alone meant sifting through explanations that assumed far more math and science than he had. So he wrote the course he wished he could have found: astronomy in plain words, in an order that makes sense, with the complicated math kept optional.
If you have ever watched a documentary, nodded along, and then wondered what it all really meant, you will feel right at home. Explained in plain words, astronomy is exciting, even fun. Taught the right way, anyone can come away with a basic understanding of the universe. Step back far enough to see the big picture, and the wonder takes care of itself.
What's inside
Nine modules that sweep outward from your backyard to the edge of the observable universe, plus a tenth section of optional math for anyone who wants to see the actual arithmetic.
10 areas · 44 lessons
- Looking Up: Your Place in the Cosmos4 lessons
- The Cosmic Toolkit: How We Know Anything At All4 lessons
- Gravity and Motion: The Rules of the Cosmic Game4 lessons
- Our Cosmic Neighborhood: The Solar System5 lessons
- What Is a Star? The Lives and Deaths of Suns5 lessons
- Galaxies and the Grand Design4 lessons
- The Dark Universe: What We Still Don't Understand3 lessons
- Cosmology: Where Did We Come From?4 lessons
- Are We Alone, How Does It End, and What's Next?4 lessons
- For the Curious: The Optional Math7 lessons
- Read at your own pace, on any device
- Downloadable cheat sheets, fact cards and a stargazing kit
- Optional stargazing activity in most lessons — no telescope needed
- Seven optional math appendices, graded Easy to Hard
- One simple payment — no subscription, no upsells