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"Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the life-long attempt to acquire it." — Albert Einstein
Astronomy (4°) 3rd Quarter 2005-06
Most recent update March 6, 2006 2:35 PM
Schedule
- Week of Friday, January 6th: Introduction to 3rd Quarter
- Day 1
- Lecture/presentation: Introduction to the 3rd Quarter
- Introduction to astro-ph
- Reminder that Starry Night is available on the alpha-lab computers
- Reading HW: Ch 25-1, 25-2, and 25-3
- HW: Ch 25 #s 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8
- Starry Night HW: Ch 25 #1; reminder: Starry Night is available on the alpha-lab computers as well -- it came with your textbook
- Day 1
- Week of Monday, January 9th: The Milky Way Galaxy
and Dark Matter
- Day 1
- Check out this old APOD page of the Milky Way galaxy, seen from the French Alps
- Lecture/presentation: Introduction to the Milky Way Galaxy
- Brainstorming for Project: The Milky Way Galaxy: A Nice Place to Live
- Reading HW: Chapter 25-4 and 25-5
- HW: Ch 25 #s 15, 16, 18, 21; and BRING MATERIALS FOR PROJECT on DAY 3
- Day 2
- Project: The Milky Way Galaxy: A Nice Place to Live (ample time to work on this during class)
- Reading HW: Chapter 25-6
- HW: Ch 25 #s 33, 25, 40; and BRING MATERIALS FOR PROJECT on DAY 3
- Day 3
- Project: The Milky Way Galaxy: A Nice Place to Live (finish and hang)
- Reading HW: Chapter 26-1 & 26-2
- HW: Ch 25 # 29
- Day 4
- DVD: Carl Sagan's Cosmos: The Backbone of Night
- Reading HW: Chapter 26-3 & 26-4
- Check out the hyperdrive!
- Day 1
- Week of Tuesday, January 17th: Galaxies and the Hubble Law
- Monday is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day -- why don't you read his speech called Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence?
- Day 1
- Laptops
- Begin Project: Galaxy Classification due Day 4 of next week
- Reading HW: Chapter 26-5
- HW: Ch 26 #s 1, 2, 3, 5 ... & continue on galaxy project
- Day 2
- Laptops
- Project: Galaxy Classification due Day 4 of next week
- Reading HW: Chapter 26-6
- HW: Ch 26 #s 6, 11, 14, 16 ... & continue on galaxy project
- Day 3
- Reading quiz : The Milky Way and Other Galaxies, Dark Matter, and the Hubble Law
- Reading HW: Chapter 26-7, 26-8 & 26-9
- Starry Night HW: Ch 26 # 57 ... & continue on galaxy project
- Week of Monday, January 23rd: Classification of Galaxies into Spirals & Ellipticals
- Day 1
- Lecture/discussion: Cosmology: the Hubble Law
- Laptops
- Project: Galaxy Classification due Day 4
- HW: Ch 26 #s 28, 29, 31 ... & continue on galaxy project
- Day 2
- Lecture/discussion: Galaxies: galaxy clusters and dark matter
- Laptops
- If you are so inclined, check out this final exam from an Introduction to Astronomy course for freshmen at MIT
- Project: Galaxy Classification due Day 4
- Reading HW: Chapter 27-1
- HW: Ch 26 #s 33 & 44 ... & continue on galaxy project
- Day 3
- Laptops
- Project: Galaxy Classification due Day 4 (tomorrow!)
- Reading HW: Chapter 27-2
- HW: Ch 26 #s 46 & 47 ... & continue on galaxy project
- Day 4
- Lecture/discussion: Galaxies: the formation of spiral arms
- Laptops
- Project: Galaxy Classification due by e-mail to me at end of class today
- Reading HW: Chapter 27-3 & 27-6
- HW: Ch 27 #s 2, 3, 7 (you might recall Carl Sagan referring to this discredited theory), 28
- Day 1
- Week of Monday, January 30th: Galaxies and Cosmology
- Day 1
- Lecture/discussion: Galaxies: galaxy clusters and dark matter
- Lecture/discussion: Galaxies: active galaxies & the redshift/distance relation
- Begin in-class assignment: Cosmology and the Hubble Law (due Day 2 of next week )
- Reading HW: Chapter 28-1 & 28-2
- HW: Ch 28 #s 4, 5, 7, 8
- Day 2
- BJP is on a field trip Day 2 ... you will be watching a video: Stephen Hawking's Universe: The Big Bang
- Reading HW: Chapter 28-3
- HW: Ch 28 #s 13, 14, 15 -- prepare one single sheet (8.5 x 11) of notes for exam tomorrow
- Day 3
- Exam on reading material from Ch 27 & 28, lecture material from Days 1 & 2, and the project you worked on last week -- you can bring one page of notes
- Reading HW: Chapter 28-4
- Internet HW: check out this sense of scale website
- HW: Ch 28 #s 17, 18 & catch-up work on in-class assignment
- Day 4
- Tegrity Recording Today
- Lecture/discussion: Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation and the Big Bang (in .ppt format)
- Reading HW: Chapter 28-5
- Internet HW: Ch 28 # 48
- HW: Ch 28 #s 20, 21, 25, 46 & work on Cosmology & Hubble Law assignment
Save the Date: on the evening of Wednesday, February 15th, we'll have a Mars night at the Metreon IMAX theater. Details below.
- Week of Monday, February 6th: Cosmology and the Shape, History, and Future of the Universe
- Day 1
- Questions on Cosmology and the Hubble Law assignment?
- Lecture/discussion: Cosmology
- Reading HW: Ch 28-6
- HW: finish assignment on Cosmology and Hubble Law
- Day 2
- Cosmology assignment due at start of period
- Lecture/discussion: Cosmology
- Guided reading for Ch 28
- Reading HW: Ch 28-7
- HW: prepare a set of reading notes on all of Chapter 28, for use on the Quiz Day 1 of next week
- Day 3
- Reading HW: Ch 28-8
- Begin video: Runaway Universe (sorry, this is not Carl Sagan)
- Lecture/discussion: Cosmology
- HW: prepare a set of reading notes on all of Chapter 28, for use on the Quiz Day 1 of next week
- Day 4
- Reading HW: Read the essay by Robert P. Kirshner just before the start of Ch 29, then read Ch 29-1
- Finish video: Runaway Universe
- HW: Ch 29 #s 1, 2, 3 & prepare a set of reading notes on all of Chapter 28, for use on the Quiz Day 1 of next week
- Day 1
Save the Date: on the evening of Wednesday, February 15th, we'll have a Mars night at the Metreon IMAX theater. Details below.
- Week of Monday, February 13th: Inflationary Cosmology
- Day 1
- Chapter 28 Exam (you can bring your notes you made last week -- last year's quiz is not a good study guide ... we were doing more mathematical stuff at this point)
- Reading HW: Ch 29-2 & 29-3
- HW: Ch 29 #s 4, 5, 6, 7
- Day 2
- HW Questions re: Ch 29
- In-class work: last year's Ch 28 quiz (more mathematical)
- Reading HW: Ch 29-4 & 29-5
- HW: Ch 29 #s 38
- Day 3
- HW Questions re: Ch 29
- Announcement of essay project
- 4 pp +, double-spaced, typed with drafts & final draft due as stated below
- topic is modern cosmology, but many subtopics abound
- please read this standards and practices regarding plagiarism website
- if you are having trouble thinking of a thesis for your topic, try the old trick & craft a sentence as follows: although many scientists believe X, it is becoming clear that Y is true.
- your essay should be a serious treatment of the issues of modern cosmology. please take on the hard issues (curvature, expansion, dimensionality) as the point of this exercise is to get you to grapple with these ideas in a novel way
- Begin video: Stephen Hawking's Universe: Program Three: Cosmic Alchemy (take notes!)
- Reading HW: Ch 29-6
- HW: attend tonight's IMAX film!!!
- Tonight (Wednesday, Feb 15th): Mars night for parents and friends. The IMAX film 'Roving Mars' begins at 7:50 PM at the Sony Metreon IMAX theater. You arrange transportation with your family, we'll pay for astronomy student admission to the show. Meet at 7:20 pm in the outdoor area just north of the Metreon lobby for a brief introduction and to arrange ticket purchases. (If weather is poor, meet inside the lobby.) For anybody interested, we'll follow the show with dessert at the nearby Mel's Diner.
- Day 4
- Continue video: Stephen Hawking's Universe: Program Three: Cosmic Alchemy (take notes!)
- Reading HW: Ch 29-7 and NASA's cosmology site
- HW: Begin essay project: 1st paragraph and outline due on Tuesday
- Day 1
- Week of Tuesday, February 21st: Cosmology & Stephen Hawking (short week)
- Day 1
- Essay project: 1st paragraph and outline due
- Remember when I taped that one lecture on cosmic microwave background using the snazzy software? Well you can listen to it here.
- Begin video: Stephen Hawking's Universe: Program Four: On the Dark Side (take notes!)
- HW: continue work on essay project (1st draft due Mon)
- Day 2
- Short period: meeting day schedule
- astro-ph articles: 0310757 (virtual pairs), 0506732 (dark fluid), 0507227 (bulk-brane), 0509105 (neutralino dark matter), 0511628 (cosmologies ruled out?), 0512034 (false vacuum), 0512586 (acceleration), 0601168 (big bang cosmology), 0602039 (dark matter), 0602053 (evolving G), 0602117 (advanced cosmology), 0602118 (dark energy), 0602137 (gravity waves), 0602147 (cluster dark energy), 0602159 (multiverse), 0602415 (brane acceleration)
- In-class assignment: distribute astro-ph articles -- do swap meet / form groups of 4 based on common subjects
- Tom V: multiverses
- Rich B: cosmic microwave background and isotropy
- Alex C: bubble universes & false vacuums
- Scott G: dark matter, dark energy, and alternative models
- Tom S: a flat universe
- Kelly B: accelerating expansion
- Natalie A: tests of inflation
- Jessica P: 5-dimensional black holes (Paul Wesson)
- Allie P: expansion of the universe
- Christine G: dark matter and dark energy
- Jeff C: dark matter, dark energy, and curvature
- Nick A: standard model of big bang cosmology
- Sean M: virtual pairs in inflation
- Continue video: Stephen Hawking's Universe: Program Four: On the Dark Side (take notes!)
- HW: read ApJ article for first time and fill out paper analysis sheet & continue work on essay
- Day 3
- Begin video: Stephen Hawking's Universe: Program Six: An Answer to Everything (take notes!)
- HW: continue work on essay project (1st draft due Mon)
- Day 1
- Week of Monday, February 27th: Astrophysical Journal Club (short week)
- Day 1
- 1st draft essay due today
- Finish video: Stephen Hawking's Universe: Program Six: An Answer to Everything (take notes!)
- Day 2
- Work on essays (laptops)
- HW: work on essay
- Day 3
- 1st draft essay returned -- final draft due Day 1 of next week
- Work on essays (laptops)
- HW: work on essay; begin studying for midterm exam (including the papers of the other students in your group)
- Day 1
- Week of Monday, March 6th: Astrophysical Journal Club (short week)
- Day 1 (Activity schedule)
- Final draft of essay due
- Begin midterm exam review
- HW: work on paper presentations for tomorrow / review for midterm exam
- Day 2 (Activity schedule)
- Paper presentations to your group (10 minutes per person) (laptops)
- Midterm Exam
- will cover all the material of this quarter plus the material in your group's papers
- Day 1 (Activity schedule)
Coming up: solar system & planets in the 4th quarter