ISP 205: Visions of the Universe. Your Professor. Assignments. Course Resources

Transcription

1 ISP 205: Visions of the Universe Goal To learn about the universe around us Astronomy Have fun Method Lectures Collaborative learning Hands-on activities Assessment Homework Electronic postings Quizzes and exams Your Professor Gary D. Westfall, Ph.D. Nuclear Physicist Studies equation of state of nuclear matter Experiments at MSU Superconducting Cyclotrons Studies the quark gluon plasma Experiments at Brookhaven National Laboratory Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider - RHIC Experimentalist Teaching physics at MSU since 1987 Teaching astronomy since Spring, Materials Book Course Resources Voyages through the Universe CD Fraknoi, Morrison, Wolff Redshift - College Edition Walker CYBER SKY (alternate, free 21 day demo) THE SKY ($120) Web site Personalized homework CAPA Assignments Homework assignments are important in the final grade. Students are expected to solve problems and answer qualitative questions in a weekly, personalized assignment. Students complete the assignments by entering answers through the campus computer network or the web. Instructions for using the Computer Assisted Personal Assignments (CAPA) system are included in handouts. Students are encouraged to work together on the homework, but each student s answers will different and must be entered individually. A calculator will be necessary to answer some of the problems. 3 4

2 Basis for the Grade The final grade will be constructed from the student s performance on homework, quizzes, and exams. There will be 3 midterm exams. A student can be excused from an exam for medical reasons or severe personal difficulties. A signed letter will be necessary to be excused. A student cannot be excused from more than one exam. If the student has taken all the exams and is happy with his/her grade, the student does not need to take the final exam. If the student takes the final exam and has taken all 3 midterm exams, the lowest exam score will be dropped. There will be a graded quiz or exercise during every lecture. No makeup for in-class work will be given. Basis for the Grade, Cont. During the term, extra credit work will be assigned and will be added to the homework score. Approximately the equivalent of 20 homework points will be made available. Grade calculation: Homework assignments 35% Midterm exams and Final exam, 20% each (the highest 3 scores are counted) In-class quizzes and exercises 5%. The lowest 7 quiz scores (out of 25 total) will be dropped. No quiz/exercise make-ups will be given. Grade scale: The grade scale is guaranteed. The actual scale may be lowered from these values but will not be raised to to to to to to to above 90.0 Grade Scale Exams Date, Time, and Place of Exams: Midterm Exam #1 Monday, September 24, 7:00 pm, Room 118, Physics-Astronomy Building Midterm Exam #2 Monday, October 29, 7:00 pm, Room 118, Physics-Astronomy Building Midterm Exam #3 Monday, December 3, 7:00 pm, Room 118, Physics-Astronomy Building Final Exam Monday, December 10, 8:00-10:00 pm, Room 118, Physics-Astronomy Building Exams will all be multiple choice and computer-graded 7 8

3 CAPA Homework Each student will have personalized homework assignments You can access CAPA with a simple terminal emulator or through the WWW using a browser For example, to access CAPA using a browser Point your browser to: Select isp205s1 from the Class pop-up menu. Enter your Student Number, then the CAPA ID that is printed at the top of each assignment. Click on the appropriate button to try your set. Assessment We will give a quiz and the beginning of class (today) and give the same quiz at the end of the semester The quiz is a sample of the material covered in the course The first step is a quiz in class today This quiz will be graded and will count only as extra credit This quiz will be given again later to assess our teaching techniques 9 Homework Notes If you lose your HW paper you can work the assignment on the www. To get your PIN for the week you will need your student number and a PIN from a previous week s assignment. Go to to get your new PIN. You may repeat the problems you missed 30 times and still get full credit. After an incorrect response, a hint may be available. It is viewed by selecting :H in telnet, and appears automatically on the www. You may login/logout as many times as you wish. Once a problem is correct, credit cannot be lost. Do not open multiple sessions or browsers. Clicking the browser s "Reload/Refresh" button right after submitting an incorrect answer re-submits that incorrect answer and uses up a Try. Selecting the Discuss button allows you to post questions and help on the homework. If you are having trouble with a problem this is a good way to get help. Contact Information Professor Gary D. Westfall 208 Cyclotron Office phone off campus , extension 324 on campus Fax: westfall@nscl.msu.edu Home (emergencies) Phone: Fax:

4 The Nature of Astronomy The study of objects outside the Earth s atmosphere and processes by which these objects interact with each other Humanity s efforts to organize a clear history of the universe When we look up, we see a universe that is evolving The Nature of Science Science accepts nothing on faith Science is a method as well as a body of knowledge New ideas are proposed and tested Hypotheses Science is the continuous process of proposing and testing hypotheses The Laws of Nature Fundamental principles extracted from many observations are called laws The same laws apply everywhere in the universe These laws cannot be suspended or ignored Laws can be modified and changed as new observations are made and hypotheses are tested Most laws are expressed with mathematical equations In this course we will use very few equations Numbers in Astronomy In studying astronomy we often deal with large numbers Suppose we want to write the distance from the Earth to the Sun 93,000,000 miles 93 million miles 93 x 10 6 miles 9.3 x 10 7 miles or 9.3E7 miles Small numbers use negative exponents x

5 Light Years A light year is a unit of distance A light year is the distance light travels in a year Light travels 3 x 10 8 meter/second (186,000 miles per second) A year has 365 days x 24 hours/day x 60 minutes/hour x 60 seconds/minute = seconds A light year is then s times 3 x 10 8 meters/second = 9.46 x meters = 9.46 x kilometers = 5.88 x miles That s 6 trillion miles A long way The Speed of Light/Travel Time The finite (but fast) speed of light means that travel to distant objects will take a long time Any information we receive from distant objects can only get to us at the speed of light We will see a distant object as it existed when the light began its journey to us When an object travels near the speed of light time slows down compared with the background universe - Einstein s special relativity If we can travel close to the speed of light, we can go forward in time We can t go back in time Earth Moon A Tour of the Universe Planet 13,000 km in diameter Our nearest astronomical neighbor 384,000 km away The diameter of the moon is 3476 km, 1/4 of the Earth Light takes 2.6 seconds to travel from the Earth to the Moon and back Earth in Orbit The Earth orbits the Sun, 93 million miles away 150 million kilometers It takes 8 minutes for light to get from the Sun to the Earth The distance from the Earth to the Sun is called an astronomical unit (AU) The Earth takes 1 year or 3 x 10 7 seconds to go around the sun The Earth is traveling 110,000 km/hour or 66,000 miles per hour around the sun 19 20

6 The Solar System There are nine planets orbiting the Sun along with their associated moons Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto Milky Way Milky Way Our sun is 1 of 200 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy 100,000 light years in diameter The Sun is 30,000 light years from the center of the Galaxy 21 22