Physics 55: Related Links

Course and Duke Links:

• Announcements.
• Syllabus.
• Lectures.
• Homeworks.
• Course-related files.
• Mastering Astronomy , instructional website associated with the text.

• Academic calendar 2005-2006.
• Duke Physics Challenges.
• Physics Department.

Journals:

• Astronomy Education Review
• Astronomy Magazine: for nonspecialists.
• Astronomical Journal: where the science gets published.
• Mercury Magazine.
• Sky & Telescope: for nonspecialists.

• Nature Science Update.
• NewScientist.com
• New York Times.
• Physics Focus    Easy-to-read brief summaries of recent Physical Review Letters.
• Physics News Update and Physics News Graphics:   Easy-to-read brief summaries of general advances in Physics, often with nice graphics.
• Physical Review Letters Online.    The premier physics journal for new important results.
• Physics Today    Monthly magazine of the American Physical Society.
• PhysicsWorld: physics news for the non-scientist.
• Science    The premier American journal for important results in all areas of science.
• Science News     Brief nontechnical discussions of recent advances in science.
• Scientific American Online.

North Carolina Resources:

• Chapel Hill Astronomical and Observational Society (CHAOS).
• Morehead Planetarium at UNC Chapel Hill.
• Raleigh Astronomy Club.
• SpaceTalk, UNC student-organized group dedicated to advocating the human exploration of Mars and space, holds lots of interesting local events (speakers, night viewing sessions,...).
• Three College Observatory in Snow Camp, North Carolina.

Pioneers:

• Jocelyn Bell discovered the first pulsar while a graduate student.
• Tycho Brahe (1546-1601).
• Robin Canup, computational astrophysicist who was a physics major at Duke, now a leader in understanding the origin of the Moon and the formation of planets.
• Henry Cavendish (1731-1810) was the first person to measure the value of the gravitational constant G and hence the mass of the world.
• Sandra Faber.
• Galileo Galilei (1564-1642).
  • Galileo Galilei.
  • NASA bio about Galileo Galilei, more personal and historical than scientific.
• Edwin Hubble (1889-1953).
• Russell Hulse codiscovered the first binary neutron star as a graduate student, which enabled the first quantitative test of Einstein's theory of general relativity.
• Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695).
• Isaac Newton (1642-1727):
  • Biography.
  • Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (some sections online).
  • Web page devoted to Newton.
• Emmy Noether (1882-1935).
• Vera Rubin.

References:

• General Astroomy, wikibook
• The Encyclopedia of Astrobiology, Astronomy, and Spaceflight.
• Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
• Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.
• Handbook of Space Astronomy and Astrophysics.
• The Periodic Table.