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Rules
of Phys463e
1. You are
assumed to follow NINOVA regularly.
All announcements and documents will be available from there.
Reading Material
History of Astronomy
1. The reading
material for the first week: Read from Dr.
Strobels astronomy notes Chapters 3 and 4 (Essential).
2. Supplementary material: "Ankara Universitesi'nde
Astronomi Tarihi Ders Notları", and some nice
reading with many external links by Gene Smith.
3. Kepler's
laws of planetary motion and their connection to Newton's Laws.
3. Some extra reading on special subjects (recommended):
a) Aristarchus
b) Astronomical
Names for the Days of the Week
c) From Wikipedia: on the
origin of the Days of
the Week.
d) Osmanlı Astronomisi
e) Takiyuddin
by Yavuz Unat.
f) Takiyuddin by Metin And.
g) The legacy of Uluğ Bey by Kevin Kriscuinas
h) Biographies from Wikipedia:
Ptolemy, Nasir_al-Din_Tusi,
Aristarchus of
Samos, Galileo Galilei, Uluğ Bey, Copernicus, Kepler,
Tycho
Brahe
4. Further reading only for those especially
interested in the history of science:
a) Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galilei
b) The Observatory in
Islam. and Its Place in the General History of the Observatory, Aydın Sayılı
c) Uluğ
Bey ve Semerkand'daki
İlim Faaliyetleri Hakkında Gıyaseddün-i Kaşi'nin Mektubu, Aydın Sayılı
d) İstanbul
Rasathanesi, Süheyl Ünver
e) Electronic
representation of Galilei's notes on motion
f) The Galileo Project is a source of
information on the life and work of Galileo Galilei
g) The
warfare of science with theology, Andrew White
h) On
the Heavens, Aristoteles
Order of
magnitude physics and the Art of Estimation
1. Train yourself to be fluent in "back of the
envelope" calculations using "order of magnitude physics." You
can study some of the links below.
a. Some lecture notes by
Sanjoy Mahayan or look here.
b. Bending
of starlight
c. Estimating gas mileage: An example
of order-of-magnitude physics, Sanjoy Mahajan
d. Problems
e. Some notes
By Nir Shaviv
f. Ay250
Order Of Magnitude Physics, by Eugene Chiang, transcribed by Aaron Parsons
2. From Dr. Strobels
astronomy notes section
2 of Chapter 1 (Essential) b) Powers
of ten c) Atlas of the
Universe
Photometry
1. Understanding stellar properties:
a. Dr. Strobel's
notes, Chapter 11: Parallax,
Magnitude system,
Color and Temperature
(essential)
b. Study this link
by and the java applett.
c. Look up some concepts from the
Wikipedia: Astronomical
Unit, Parsec, Parallax, (Astronomic
Units of Length), Absolute magnitude, Apparent magnitude, Luminosity, Lambert's cosine law,
Cosmic
Distance Ladder, Interstellar
Reddening, Interstellar
Extinction, Astronomical
Seeing, Angular
Diameter, Standard
Candle, Standard
Ruler, Globular
Cluster, Color index,
Photometric System,
UBV Photometric
System
d. A nice demonstration
of parallax.
2. The Standard Candles in
Astrophysics are
a) Cepheid
variable
b) RR
Lyrae variable
c) X-ray burster
d) Type 1a supernovae
Some links on standard candles:
link
one, link
two, link three
5. Biography: Henrietta
Leavitt, Annie
Jump Cannon
6. Recommended reading-1: "First Computers were
human!":
'Miss
Leavitt's Stars': The Female Computer
Woman
Astronomers at Harvard at the turn of the century
Harvard Computers
7. Recommended reading-2: "Curtis-Shapley
Debate":
first link,
second
link, third
link, fourth
link (Sorry I could not choose a best one, just read any of them)
Kepler Problem
Kepler's laws of planetary motion
Gravitational two-body problem
Advanced topics:
Kepler problem in General Relativity
Perihelion precession of Mercury
Continuous
Mass Distributions
Stellar Astrophysics
1. Look up some concepts from the Wikipedia: Abundance
of Chemical Elements, Metallicity,
Stellar Population, Hertzsprung-Russell
diagram, Stellar
Classification
2.Look up further concepts from Wikipedia: Nucleosynthesis
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (=BBN=Primordial Nucleosynthesis)
Stellar Nucleosynthesis
Supernova nucleosynthesis
baryogenesis
reionization
3. Biography: Eddington,
4. time-line of
stellar astronomy
Fluid
Dynamics
These
lectures are about Astrophysical Gas Dynamics. I recommend these lecture notes
by James R. Graham. Of course we will not study all of it in this term. You
will have to look at the relevant sections.
Also some chapters from these lecture notes by
Kip Thorne also is helpful.
Interesting links: Nice pictures of fluid
motion. Gallery of fluid
mechanics!
Stellar
Structure
These lectures are about stellar structure. I
recommend the lecture notes
by Chris Flynn.
In order to
view postscript (.ps) format files in this site, ghostview
and
ghostscript should be installed on your
computer. This is a very useful
file format that you eventually will need someday.
Stellar
Evolution
These lectures
are about stellar evolution. Here are some notes and slides with nice pictures:
Stellar Structure and Evolution Simulator
link
1
link
2
link
3
link
4
link
5
link 6
link 7
link
8
These are some few
links that I could find by searching from google. If
you do not like them, start from what wikipedia
has to say on stellar evolution.
Light and its ineraction with matter
This last lecture was about interaction of light with
matter. It also included
a discussion of spectra
and interpretation of it. I used the folowing
sections from Prof. Rowan's
Astronomy notes:
1- Light
&Radiation 1
2- Light
& Radiation 2
3- Atomic
Spectra
4- Stellar
Spectra
Kirk T. Korista in Western Michigan University
Nick Strobel
in Bakersfield College
James Schombert
in in Oregon
Sample lecture notes
from Jodrell Bank
Fundamentals of
Stellar Astrophysics, by Collins,
II
A review of the Universe
Actually Korista gives comprehensive links to many
good astrophysics websites and lecture notes.