The following is a tentative schedule for the current class (Summer 2010). It probably will not survive intact, as I tend to slow down when people have trouble and speed up when it is smooth sailing, which varies year to year. But it is a schedule that will carry us through the material in a timely way, and complete all the required work in the allotted time.
Finally, write me a short, informal paper or letter that explains why you are taking this course, and what (aside from a science credit) you hope to get out of it. Is there anything in particular you hope to learn? Have you always been curious about science in general, or astronomy in particular? Do you want to know how (as best we can tell) the Universe came to be as it is? Are you hoping to learn enough to pursue amateur astronomy as a hobby, perhaps with your own telescope? Whatever your interests or goals here, articulate them both for me and for yourself - at the end of the course you can assess whether or not you have accomplished what you set out to accomplish and learned what you hoped to learn.
This homework assignment will be due Monday, 5/24 at the beginning of class.
All About the Moon and the Tides!
Gravity, orbits, the planets. The problem of retrograde motion on the ``spheres''. The first working solution - the Ptolemaic geocentric model. What is good and bad about it (and why one it is bad to have a religious mythology in the way of unbiased reason). Occam/Ockham's Razor - should Nature be ``simple''? Copernican heliocentric model2. Synodic and sidereal periods revisited (opposition and conjunction).
Tycho Brahe's observations. Johannes Kepler and Kepler's Laws. Galileo and (St.) Bellarmine. Newton and Newton's Laws. Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. Orbits. Kepler's Laws revisited. The Tides once again.
We'll start (but probably not finish) the study of light in chapter 5.
Also read St. Bellarmine's Letter to Galileo and, if you like, do more google-based work looking up the woes of Copernicus and Galileo, in particular.
You should note that we are due to have a gangbusters solar eclipse right across NC from the look of it in 2017, a mere seven years from now. Plan your reunion visits early! These problems are due on Friday (before our probable quiz on Chapters 1-3).
Our Solar System (chapters 7-16, overlapping into the next week): Kinds of planets: rocky, gas giants, dwarf planets and moons. Names of planets, order, characteristics. Kinetic energy, temperature, and planetary atmosphere. Asteroids. Comets. Cratering and how it relates to age and history and internal geology of planets, moons, etc where we can observe it. Magnetic field and fluid planetary interiors (and Jupiter!).
It is also time to switch over to ``information, not equations'' mode. For the rest of the summer session, your standing assignment will be reading the Unverse textbook like a novel, just for the fun and the very cool interesting stuff in it, at the rate of 2 chapters per night (this should take you no longer than a couple of hours, as the chapters aren't that long).
Don't just read! Take notes as you go, highlight things that you want to talk about in class or things you'd like to see or have further explained. There will be a smattering of problems from the chapters as we go, added below, but from now on we really will focus much more on reading and understanding the vast wealth of what is known about our Universe. At this point you know enough of the science that most of this should now make sense to you. Of course, whatever doesn't should be brought to class and discussed!
Be sure to read the rest of the book! I will not ask questions on it as we didn't cover it in detail in class, but the chapters on the structure of galaxies and the origin and evolution of the Universe are very interesting. On Monday I will try to go over at least some parts of chapter 26 so we can add some detail to our existing picture of the big bang (and review the evidence, including evidence such as the inference of the expanding Universe and Hubble constant that we have not yet covered). Tuesday is, as I note above, the reading period (which I had forgotten) and there will be no class. I will, however, be available in our classroom during our normal time period and would be happy to hold a review session and answer questions for anybody during that period and for as long afterwards as people wish to stay.
All homework (including any missing assignments) is due by the 28th at the very latest (by University rule). This will let me grade the last of it and give it back to you in time to study from it on the 29th. The long paper you can hand in anytime up to the exam on Wednesday.