- Teaching Assistant:
- Neil Patel
619O Graduate Research Tower
Phone: 545-9442
Office Hours: Wed 2:30 to 3:30 or by appointment
Email:
nppatel@astro.umass.edu
COURSE OVERVIEW
This course will lead you on the longest, farthest journey
possible: through the known Universe, and back in time 15 billion
years to the Big Bang. Two major goals will be addressed throughout
the semester:
-
Become familiar with the fundamental contents of the Universe
(Galaxies, Stars, Planets, Gas, Dust, Particles, and Radiation); and
-
Understand how science works, and how we know what we
know.
Along the way, you'll learn about the Four Forces of Physics
that describe virtually everything in the physical Universe, and
you'll also come to appreciate the almost overwhelming beauty of the
natural world.
The course is organized into four sections:
- Naked-Eye Astronomy: You probably know more than you think
- Tools of Astronomy: The Physics of Light; Spectra
- Stars: Their birth, life, and death
- Galaxies and Cosmology: The Origin and Fate of the Universe
For more details, look at the Syllabus
Format
Course material will be explored in the two lectures every week;
readings from the text; and homework (see Requirements for more details).
However, there will be ample opportunity for individual exploration
and interaction -- just as there is in scientific research. You are
encouraged to ask questions in class and during office hours;
to visit the telescope on Orchard Hill and the
planetarium at Amherst College; and in general to let only your
imagination be the limit.
Not everything from the reading will be covered in class lectures but you
are responsible for all the material covered in the readings. I will
try to cover the more difficult to understand topics during class lectures.
Science is more than just memorizing facts.
I will try to teach you to think analytically and logically, like a scientist.
Hence the answers to some exam questions will not be found as a single
fact in either the reading or the lecture notes but will require you
to put one or more facts together.
The Home Page for this class is at URL
http://www.astro.umass.edu/~nsk/a100.
Class notes
will be posted on the WWW
before each day's class. You are encouraged to read them before class.
These are meant to aid your studies and not to replace the reading or
lectures.
Why Should I Care?
This course will cover larger topics -- measured by mass, size, age --
you name it! -- than any other class you will ever take. This is
good. The concepts are actually not hard to grasp. More
importantly, you are now living in a complex, modern society where
science plays an ever-increasing role. It is crucial that
you understand how science and scientists actually work, since you
will find yourself voting on, reading newspaper articles about, and
probably using the products of scientific research every day for the
rest of your life. Perhaps this course will spark a life-long
interest in science; perhaps not. In any event, the thought processes
and reasoning skills you develop this semester should stand you in
good stead in situations far surpassing this single undergraduate
3-credit course.