Astronomy 102: Stars and Galaxies
Fall 2004
Vanderbilt University
http://brahms.phy.vanderbilt.edu/a102
Prof. Robert A. Knop
Lectures: MTWR 5:00-7:20PM, SC 6150
Labs: M-W, 9:00-11:59PM, observing facility (top of 25th St. Garage) or in the Stevenson Center Computer Room
Syllabus
Be sure to read the online announcements page regularly to be aware of any changes made to the information in this syllabus.
- Textbook
- Course Staff
- Prerequisites (and About the Math)
- Course Goals and Unifying Concepts
- Format of the Course
- Grading
- Course Schedule
Textbooks
- Lecture-Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy 1st ed., by Adams, Prather, & Slater
- Bring this book to class with you for every lecture. This book will be
used in lecture. Make sure you buy the first
edition, and not the preliminaty edition.
- Astronomy: The Evolving Universe, by Michael Zelik
- This is the primary text for the course. The reading assignments will usually be out of this text, supplemented by additional material that will be made available on this website or elsewhere on the web, will be indicated for each day of class. You are expected to complete the reading assignment before lecture on the indicated day. Suggestion: look at the pictures! Many concepts in science, and in particular in astronomy, are very visual, and the diagrams and images in the book can express them in ways that is more natural than the text.
To gain a familiarity with the night sky, and to understand the motions observed there;
To gain a general understanding of some of the main ideas in our understanding stars, galaxies, and cosmology, as seen through the lens of a handful of unifying concepts;
To understand something about how scientific reasoning works, what are some of the primary tools of astronomy, and how those tools have given us knowledge about the Universe as well as understanding about the limits of that knowledge.
- A Sense of Scale
- One can find a surprising amount of insight into astronomy and the
Universe we live in simply by having a grasp of the scales involved.
This does not just mean spatial scale (e.g., how far are the stars
compare to the size of the solar system, how big is the Galaxy),
although that is an important part of it. Also important are time
scales (what do we mean when we say a star is "short-lived"?), and size
scales (what is a "high-mass" star and how does it compare to, say, a
"dwarf" galaxy?)
- Energy: Forms of Energy, Transport of Energy
- Energy is one of the most important concepts in physical science.
Often, an important part of understanding an astronomical object or
process involves asking the questions: How much energy is there? Where
does this energy come from? How does this energy get from where it came
from to where it's observed? One form of energy that is particularly
important to astronomy will receive special focus: light.
- The Conflict of Gravity and Motion
- Many of the
structures we see in the Universe can be viewed as a balance between the
attractive force of gravity and the motion that would tend to make
things move away from each other. One can describe the solar system in
this manner, the orbits of stars in the Galaxy, and even the structure
of stars themselves. By considering the balance between the two, one
can understand what will happen if there is an imbalance, and one can
also understand why astronomers believe that most of our Galaxy is made
up of dark matter.
Course Staff
Instructor: Robert A. Knop
Stevenson Center 6912 (Physics Building, 9th Floor)
Office Telephone: (32)2-6165
E-mail:
r.knop@vanderbilt.edu
Office hour meetings will be done on a by-appointment basis.
Prerequisites (and About the Math)
Math 133 (Algebra & Trigonometry) or equivalent. You will do some mathematics on homework and exams, and in the laboratory. You should understand scientific notation ("powers of ten" notation) and be able to use a calculator to compute numerical values for problems which involve large numbers. You must be able to perform and understand simple algebraic equations and manipulations.
None of the math in this class is advanced beyond what you knew in order to get into Vanderbilt. If you find you are having trouble with the math, please do not hesitate to ask me or the TAs to help you with it during office yours; we are eager to help you with any problems.
There is a Math Review available on the course's web page which you may find helpful. It also describes the standards I will be using in grading, e.g., with significant figures.
Course Goals and Unifying Concepts
The goals of the course are:
Many of you who are not accustomed to thinking in the scientific mode will find this course challenging. Of course, such challenges are the very reason one attends a liberal-arts college like Vanderbilt: to learn about the full spectrum of human intellectual endeavor, and to be exposed to different modes of thinking.
This course may be different from some science courses you have had in the past. In particular, simple memorization of terms and concepts will not get you through the course. Yes, there is a fair amount of material in the course. However, the most important thing is not to be able to regurgitate facts; rather, it is more important to understand the concepts and the reasoning, and to be able to think through the implications and results of the material.
To help you provide a framework in which to understand the astronomical material of the course, I will present many of the science topics of this course in the context of three unifying concepts:
Format of the Course
Labs
Lab will meet Monday through Wednesday from 9 PM until Midnight. If it's clear enough, we will meet at the lab facility on the top of the 25th St. garage. Otherwise, we will meet in the Stevenson Center compute room. Lab attendance is mandatory. I will be updating you in lecture each day as to what we will be doing in the lab each night.
In the lab, you will gain much of your exposure to the night sky and gain some experience in observing astronomical objects yourself. The lab is described in detail on its own set of web pages. In particular, make sure you are familiar with the Lab Syllabus. You will only receive one grade for Astronomy 102, which combines your lecture and lab grades (see Grading below). However, you cannot pass the course without independently obtaining a passing grade in the lab portion of the class.
Lectures
It is expected that you will attend all of the lectures; it is a rare student who can reasonably expect to do well in a course like this without coming to class. Lectures will emphasize both explanations given by the professor and active student engagement. Never hesitate to interrupt me to ask a question during lecture. I will occasionally present you with multiple-choice questions, which you will answer by holding up colored and lettered cards. I will sometimes ask you then to discuss these questions with other students; physics and astronomy education research has shown that such pointed discussions with fellow students can go further in helping you work through misconceptions than simple lecturing on my part.
Finally, you will frequently engage in an in-class lecture tutorial (often, though not always, from the Lecture Tutorials book), working with another student or two. Lecture tutorials will not be collected or graded. However, if you use them well and really work through them, they will both guide you through difficult thinking on given topics, and serve as excellent study guides and notes for your later use.
I, as the professor, cannot make you learn; I cannot open your head and push knowledge in. I can simply enable and help you to learn. The actual learning of the course material can only be done by you. The lectures are designed to help and encourage you to learn the course material— your success in which will then be reflected in your performance on graded assignments and exams. If you take full advantage of the lectures, as well as office hours provided by me and by the TAs, hopefully you will find that every class meeting is a review session which helps you better understand the material you will need to master for exams.
Exams
There will be three in-class examinations in addition to the final. You will have one hour to complete an exam. You must complete each examination alone, without consulting others. No notes or reference material are permitted. However, you will not need to equations or precise numbers; anything of that sort you need will be on the front of the exam. (You may need to know the general magnitudes of some numbers; for instance, some exams might expect you to know that there are typically billions of stars in a galaxy like the Milky Way, or that stars near the Sun tend to be a few light-years away.) You will usually need a calculator on exams.
Exams will primarily focus on the most recent material, i.e., the material after that covered on the previous exam up through what was discussed on the Monday before the exam. Since any part of this course builds on what has gone before, you may need to know some earlier material in order to complete a later exam.
In-class examinations must be taken in class on the day they are administered. If you miss class, you will not be able to take the exam, so make sure to set your alarm and avoid oversleeping!
The final will be cumulative, covering the entire course. It will be administered at the standard, designated time for this course.
Grading of the exams: Each exam will be graded on an absolute scale. Exams will not be "curved"; your score on an exam depends only on your own performance, and does not depend on how well or poorly your classmates do. (Therefore, it is in everybody's interest to help each other study before exams!) Each question on an exam will be assigned a score from 0 to 3 based on the following:
| 0 | No meaningful progress towards a correct solution |
|---|---|
| 1 | Answer is partially (at least 50%) correct |
| 2 | Answer is mostly correct or displays a basic understanding |
| 3 | Answer is completely correct or shows outstanding insight |
For problems with multiple parts, each part will receive a 0-3 score, and the score for the problem as a whole will be the average of the scores on the individual parts (rounded to the nearest half point). Grades will be assigned such that if you get a 3 on every problem, you receive an A; if you get a 2 on every problem, you receive a B; if you get a 1 on every problem, you receive a C.
Solutions to all exams will be posted after the exams are graded.
Homework Assignments
There will be no graded homework assignments. However, I will give you review problems that you can do on your own, and I will pass out solutions to those review problems. You are encouraged to discuss these homework with fellow students as well as with the professor. Indeed, you will find that explaining a problem to somebody else can help you better understand it yourself.
Grading
Your grade will be based on the following:
| In-class Examinations (4) | 45% |
| Final Examination | 30% |
| Laboratory Activities | 25% |
The grading of the labs is discussed in the Lab Syllabus. Your lab grade will not appear as a separate course grade on your transcript, but will be factored into your overall Astronomy 102 course grade. Note, however, that you must pass the lab to pass the course. Even if you do perfectly on all homework assignments and exams, you will fail the course if you fail to turn in too many lab reports.
Course Schedule
| Day | Topic | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Tue 06-07 | Motions in the Sky | |
| Wed 06-08 | Motions in the Sky | Chap 1 |
| Thu 06-09 | Motions in the Sky | |
| Mon 06-13 | Motions in the Sky | |
| Tue 06-14 | Distances to Stars | Section 13.2 ; The Stars in Our Galaxy |
| Wed 06-15 | Galaxies in the Universe | Sections 18.1-18.3 |
| Thu 06-16 | Sky Motions & Spatial Scales Review; Exam 1 | |
| Mon 06-20 | All About Energy | Chapter 5 |
| Tue 06-21 | Blackbody Radiation | Sections 13.1-13.3 |
| Wed 06-22 | Spectroscopy | (Review chapter 5) |
| Thu 06-23 | Classifying Stars; Energy Generation in Stars | Sections 13.4-13.5; Seciton 12.6 |
| Mon 06-27 | Energy & Light Review; Exam 2 | |
| Tue 06-28 | Solar System Orbits; Binary Stars | Chapters 3 and 4; Section 13.6 |
| Wed 06-29 | Stellar Structure and Evolution | Sections 12.1-12.5; Chapter 15; Sections 16.1-16.5 |
| Thu 06-30 | Galaxy Motions; Dark Matter | Chapter 17; Sections 18.5-18.7 |
| Mon 07-04 | July 4 Holiday | |
| Tue 07-05 | The Whole Universe | Section 18.4; Chapter 20 |
| Wed 07-06 | The Conflict of Gravity and Motion; Exam 3 | |
| Thu 07-07 | Black Holes and the Warp of Spacetime | Sections 16.7-16.8; Chapter 7 |