H/W assignment #8
Due at 12 noon on Nov 19 through sakai

(1) The "back and forth" expressed in the letters between the members
    of the Russian Academy and A. Einstein (this week's reading
    assignment clearly indicates a lack of understanding and trust
    between leaders and indeed the citizens of the Soviet Union and
    the U.S. in the post WWII era. Find a controversy dividing two
    groups of people in the current era and draw analogies between
    your chosen controversy and the one regarding "world government"
    in the reading.  Be as specific as you can by drawing on
    statements in the letters and relevant current-day sources for the
    controversy you choose.  Your controversy should deal with a
    weighty current issue, but it does not necessarily need to be one
    between nation states (although it can be).  It should most
    definitely not be one between sports teams.

(2) The matter-energy content of the Universe on large enough scales
    is usually assumed under cosmological models to be homogeneous and
    isotropic.  Define these quantities and give examples of matter 
    distributions that are
     (a) inhomogeneous,
     (b) nonisotropic,
     (c) homogeneous, but not isotropic,
     (d) isotropic, but not homogeneous.

(3) A simplistic pre-GR cosmological model is presented in the first
    paragraph of chapter 30 in "Relativity."  In this cosmology space
    and time are infinite, as is the distribution of stars.  Einstein
    states that "this view is not in harmony with the theory of
    Newton," by which he specifically means the Law of Universal
    Gravitation.  What is Einstein's argument for the failure of this
    cosmological model?