David E. Trilling
David Rittenhouse Laboratory
209 S. 33rd Street
Office 4N2A (north wing, fourth floor, eastern end of the hall,
north side).
Office phone: 215 898 8746
Email: trilling@hep.upenn.edu
Web:
http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~trilling
This course:
http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~trilling/teaching
I've graded the exams and turned in the grades. Come by or email me if you want to know how you did. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the exam scores and class grades. I'll post the histograms on my office door so you can check them out at your leisure. Thanks again. --David (20 Aug 2001)
Exam review: Bring
some questions to class on Tuesday. We can
spend part of the in-class problem set time
going over things for the exam. 3 August 2001
Jury duty: The case
I was assigned to was dismissed, and I was sent
home with $9 in my pocket. I did get some good
work done on Tuesday's lecture, though, while
I was waiting. 3 August 2001
Some general notes about
the final exam can be found here.
1 Aug 2001
This morning I had two thoughts about the
observing lab.
One: You may want to consider
making some observations of the moon in the next
few nights when it is clear, even though you don't
have a telescope. You should be able to do some
decent work with your eye from a dark place; you can
then augment this next week, hopefully, at the
observatory (counting on good weather). That way if
there is not good weather, you still have
some observations. You can of course use any
telescope or binoculars you have.
Two: I realized this morning
why the observations of Mars are not as impressive as
we were hoping:
check out this link. I think I saw a small amount of detail
the other night, but we will have to see how things progress.
This is still a worthwhile observation, and you do
get information from making it! If you decide to observe
Mars for your project, you need to discuss this aspect of
your observations. 27 July 2001
For problem #6
in this week's
homework, you can assume that the stars
are main sequence stars. 24 July 2001
Typo in
homework #2: In problem
5, second paragraph, it should read "Assume that Mars has
a biosphere which is one tenth the mass and/or volume
of the Earth's...." Also for the homework, problem
#7: Note that the surface of Io shows NO impact
craters at all on it. Very interesting! 16 July 2001
Solution sets for in class
problem sets 1 and 2 posted. Follow the lecture links or
go here. 6 July 2001
Revised class hours to correspond with what
the registrar says: 6:00-9:10pm. 5 July 2001
Office hours: I am almost always in my office between 11am and 6pm Monday-Friday (and often other hours outside of this). Feel free to stop by, or to arrange a specific meeting time with me. You can easily contact me by phone or email. We can also meet before or after class or regular work hours, by appointment, if this works better for you.
Textbook: Kaufmann, UNIVERSE, Fifth edition. This book is available in the Penn Bookstore and also in the Math/Physics/Astronomy library (DRL 3N1). You do not have any particular reading assignments, only to keep up with the class material. There are things in the textbook which we will not cover in this short class; it can't hurt you to read them, but you will not be responsible for them.
Additional resources provided by me: various photocopies,
extra readings, science links for reference, etc.
Additional resources required by you: Web access. Also, you should
bring your calculators to class every day.
In class problem sets: During each class we will spend some amount of time working in small groups on small problem sets. These problem sets will not be collected. The goal of this is to get some practical experience with the concepts we are learning and to give you, the students, opportunities to teach and learn from each other. I have done this before and it can work extremely well. In class problem sets can be found here.
Homework: There will be five homework assignments given during this course. Each one will be assigned on a Thursday and due at the beginning of class the following Tuesday. You are encouraged to discuss the homeworks with your classmates but -- in contrast with the in class problem sets -- doing your final writeup should be done by yourself: you should turn in work which is yours and yours alone. Please ask if there are any questions about this policy. Homework sets can be found here.
Observing lab: There will be one required observing lab for the course. The observatory (on the roof of DRL) will be open every Thursday night during the course, from 9-10pm, weather permitting. See separate page for more information about this assignment.
Grading policy: Final exam, 40%; observing lab, 10%; Homework sets, 50%.
1) Course intro. Basics of astronomy. History. Units. Telescopes. The electromagnetic spectrum. Gravity. Chapters 1,2,4,5,6. (3 July 2001)
2) Motions of planets. Eclipses. Motions of stars. Intro to our Solar System. Chapters 3,4,7,19,25. (5 July 2001)
3) Formation of the Solar System. Meteorites. Comets. Asteroids. Impacts. Rocky planets. Chapters 7,10,11,17. (10 July 2001)
4) Earth as a planet, Mars, Jupiter, Galilean satellites. Chapters 8,9,12,13,14. (12 July 2001)
5) Finish the Solar System: Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. Extrasolar planets. The sun. Chapters 7,15,16,17,18. (17 July 2001)
6) Stars, the HR diagram, types of stars. How do we know? Chapter 19. (19 July 2001)
7) Birth of stars, middle age, death of stars. Chapters 20,21,22. (24 July 2001)
8) Neutron stars, black holes, supernovae: boom! Chapters 23,24. (26 July 2001)
10) Cosmology. Microwave background. Large scale structure. Chapters 28,29. (2 August 2001)
11) Astrobiology. Life in the universe. The origin of life. Chapter 30. (7 August 2001)
12) Final exam. (9 August 2001)