Office: Dearborn
Observatory #3
Phone: 491-5633
Email: m-ulmer2@northwestern.edu
Office
Hours: by appointment, or M.F 3:00-4:00
TA
Nick Mucia
Office: Tech F147
e-mail: NicholasMucia2016@u.northwestern.edu
phone: 773-206-0663
Office Hours: 3:00-4:00 p.m
Tuesdays
11:00 a.m.-12:00 noon Wednesdays
Review sessions will be held in Tech (Map of 3rd
floor of Tech), where: 1st one in Annenberg G15, the last two in M345 (go to the link and
type in M345 in the Tech room finder search box)
8:00-9:30 p.m.Tuesdays
Oct 11 and Nov 1, plus Sunday Nov 20
Observing at Dearborn,
8:00-9:30 p.m.
All observing sessions
are on Monday nights starting 26 September (I hope; Check on Friday Sept 23).
The last
session will be 28 November
NO Final Exam: (3 Mid terms and quizzes instead)
We'll have four, 5 minute quizzes on Friday and make up quizzes on Monday. See below for the dates. You can replace one quiz with a paper. If your paper does not receive a grade higher than you lowest quiz grade, I’ll keep the quiz grade. Note, based on previous experience, do not count on a grade higher than 3/5 on your paper.
The course grade will be on 3 "mid-term
exam" (25%, 25%, and 30%; 80% total) and quizzes (20%). The exams will
consist of multiple choice, short answer, and essay questions. In the case of
missed exams, make-ups will only be considered under the direst of
circumstances and will consist of an oral test. Quizzes will consist of a short
essay question or questions.
Dearborn
Observatory has an 18 inch refractor that allows
spectacular viewing of the planets, the moon and other objects. Observing
sessions will probably be held on Tuesday evenings, but check on Friday (here
or in class), 23 September for the day of the week for the observing sessions.
There will be two sessions. Each will be one hour long and will be limited to
10 students. The first session will be held the second week of class. The times
of the sessions will be announced at the end of the preceding week and the
beginning of the week of the sessions. Sign up sheets will be made available in
class and attendance will be taken at the sessions. You are allowed to attend
more than one session. You
should attend at least one session. The session will he held regardless of
whether it is cloudy or not. A tour will be given in any event. Repeat
attendance to achieve actual viewing is encouraged, but not required. If you are on the boarder line, i.e within
1-2 percentage points of the next grade level down, and you have not gone to an
observing session I’ll move you down ½ a grade, e.g., from B to B-
Introduction, Read Chapters 1,2
o
NASA Office of Space
Science - the US space facilities
o
The Naval
Observatory Web Page - "the web site for those who really want to know
what time it is"
o
Sky Online - courtesy of
Sky and Telescope magazine
Week 2 (Sept 26-30)
Read
Chapters 3, 4.1, 4.2, (skip the rest of
chapter 4), 6
Quiz on
Friday Sept 30
o Optics Simulators for the
experts
Week 3 (Oct 4-8)
Read Chapters
7, 8, 9.1, 9.2
Quiz
o Another
Web Page on the Solar System - links to other web pages
o The Entire
Solar System at your fingertips - links to other web pages
o The
Moon phases great for avoiding were-wolves, planning grunion run
expeditions, or even looking that the sky
o Geology of
the Moon web course
Week 4 (Oct 11-15)
Review on Monday 11 Oct, Review Session 12 Oct 8:00-9:30 pm.
Exam Wed
Oct 12 covering chapters 1, 2, 3, 4.1, 4.2, 6, 7, 8, 9.1,
9.2
After exam read chapter 10 part
Week 5 (Oct 17-21)
Read Chapters
10 part, 11, 12
Quiz On Friday
Oct 21
o
Some really neat solar system
pictures
Week 6 (Oct 24-28)
Read Chapters 13, 14
o
Move
your star on the HR diagram
o
More about the ISM
than you care for
o
Triggered
Star formation, chicken and egg
Quiz on Friday Oct 28
Week 7 (Oct 31-4)
o
Neil de
Grasse Tyson on falling into a black hole
o
Weird
stuff inside a black hole
Review On Monday, Review session Tuesday Night 8:00-9:30
Exam On Wednesday Nov 2 covering Chapters 10, 11 , 12 13, 14
After exam chapter 15
Week 8 (Nov 7-11)
o Lecture (> 1 hr) Black hole at the Galactic Center
Read Chapters 16, 17 (part), 18
Week 9 (Nov14-18)
o
Observable
Universe with Sloan Galaxy Images
o
Observable
Universe ot its edge
o
Planck
Satellite First Light
o
French
film that has nothing to do with the the class, but
is amusing
Read
Chapters 19, 20
Review session Sunday Night Nov 20, 8:00-9:30 p.m.
Review
Friday Nov 19
Week 10 Nov 21
Nov 21 Exam
Covering 15, 16, 17
(part) 18, 19, 20
Happy Thanksgiving
As a way of introduction, I would like to begin by making some
general comments.
First, Astronomy is probably the oldest science. Anybody who has looked
up at the sky has gazed in wonderment. Driven both by curiosity and religion,
man continued to study the sky. There were some pretty important religious
based questions that were addressed, such as exactly where did man and the
earth stand compared to the universe. On the curiosity side, we are simply
driven on and to learn more even as we learn more. For, as we delve in to the
limitless universe it seems we often uncover new questions as we answer old
ones. The growth in our knowledge of physics in the past 100 years has allowed
us to understand a great deal about the stars, planets, galaxies and the
universe at large. In the distant past when this knowledge wasn't available,
astronomers had more use as astrologers. They told people the location of the
planets etc. The concept of a supernatural being and how the being's existence
explains the existence and characteristics of Earth has affected people's
connection with organized religion and vice versa. The knowledge of astronomy
was useful for debates in this area. The Copernican Revolution was a classic
example. Now we enter a new era of astronomy and astrophysics where billions of
dollars are spent every year on astrophysics research, and society as a whole
is starting to ask tough questions such as why is this research necessary?
What's in it for me? Or why do I find it interesting? And is it worth that much money? This has placed a
requirement on the professional astrophysicist to emphasize research that
connects directly to the interests of the layman rather than, perhaps, the
esoteric interests of the peer group of astronomers and astrophysicists who
know enough to ask detailed questions. You, as future leaders and taxpayers
will have to answer the question of how much funding to give to astronomy and astrophysics and why. Two of my goals in
this course are to motivate you to want to learn this material and to teach you
enough so that you will be able to make educated choices about future funding
as well as to appreciate future press releases and discoveries.
There is another reason for you to take this course, however, and
that is to learn how to think like a scientist. So stop to think a minute now,
what does it mean to you when the TV reporter says
"today scientists have announced the discovery of..." The use of the
word scientist had a certain implied reliability, right? Why is that? And why
do most universities require that you take an
science class? This is because you are supposed to receive some training
to behave like a scientist, right? Yet mostly the astronomy, biology and
geology courses that are offered are descriptive courses where the main goal is
to teach jargon and facts. The facts will be useful as noted above, but beyond
that this new knowledge will make you more conversant, and if your child asks
you something about the sky someday you'll be able to give a concrete answer.
But is this motivation enough to require that you take a science class? Probably not. It is better for you to get some training at
acting scientifically. We won't be able to do this rigorously, but I hope you
will actually benefit from this class.
Here are some of the things that I hope will stick with you:
(1) Be methodical and take careful notes: since this is the is the
art of making reproducible results, e.g., if you tell somebody exactly how you
did something, they should be able to repeat it and get the same result. As an
aside here, there is implied a certain level of competency in being able to
reproduce the results. I could get a very precise ski lesson and still not be
able to make it down a snow covered slope in one piece. Nevertheless, detailed
recording of how the measurements were done, the material was made, etc is what is needed. One of the things that makes most of us disbelieve in UFOs, leprechauns, Big Foot etc, is that the supposed observations are not reproducible
in any controlled fashion. (Sure people continue to report UFOs, Big
Foot etc, but there is no concrete, reproducible
evidence of these things.)
2) Think deductively and critically. For example, if a marketing
person calls you and tells you that if you follow their advice, you will become
rich... Think about it...Why doesn't the person on the end of
the line just follow their own advice? OR thinking critically: a
football player a few years ago had a sore back and the team had him take 40
Advils a day. What was he thinking? Didn't the
read the bottle for directions? Also when somebody provides you with a fact
that is important to you, how do they know? What is their reference, or how did
they make the measurement? This will even allow you to pick out exaggerated
claims such as "Scientists discover Black Hole....''. How did they know?
(3) Avoid as often as you can qualitative thinking and descriptions
versus quantitative descriptions, e.g. it's a long way to Tipperary..what does "long way" mean?
(4) Always have an idea of where you are going, why are you going
there and a schedule for achieving those goals. No scientific project that
takes more than a few hours or days can be done on time and within budget
without systematic planning, project justification, budgets etc.
As we learn about the Milk Way Galaxy we will find it is huge. And
thus unlike the solar system where we can send satellites (or even people) to
explore the planets, moons asteroid and comets, we can at the very best only
hope to reach the nearest stars. For, at 1/10 the speed of light, about as fast
as we can ever imagine achieving with a rocket, it would take 40 years to reach the
closet star. To get a picture of our
galaxy then would take a rocket trip of about 10,000-100,000 years! Clearly this in not feasible, so an
interesting questions for our class are: how do we know what our galaxy looks
like and what
is it made up of?
Imagine, then, for a moment that we are intelligent amoebae living
½ way up a 20 year old oak tree trunk.
We only live for a second to two, but we’re so smart that we’ve
developed a technology to look through the tree and well as outward. We have no
hope to traveling proportionally far in the tree trunk nor do we have much
motivation given our life spans. For,
even if we could achieve high velocities (for us), it would take tens to
hundreds of millions of lifetime so go around the trunk once. We have figured out via remote sensing that
we are on a thing that has leaves,, and bark and
branches. Then we have to look out and see if we could find something that looks like what we
think we live in. We see grass and conclude, nope, not grass. Then we see
bushes, rocks and maybe even an house. Nope, not those. either, we
conclude Then we see a red bud tree. Note not that either,
but closer. Our habitant is related at
least. Then finally we find a 20 year old oak tree and
we by virtue of establishing the distance to the oak tree, determine that its
size and shape meets the description of our own tree. How we figured out
distance in our own tree, and then to the next trees was tricky, but we did
it. Determining that there are deciduous
and non-deciduous trees would take some careful recoding for about 10 million
generations if a generation were only 1-2 seconds!
In this next example, we
see that of humans, not knowing distances and sizes to objects gave them much
less interest to us when they were originally discovered. Thus, the early 1800’s when astronomers still
didn’t know that we lived in
galaxy of enormous
size. Then the Messier catalog was
made (by M. Charles Messier) to list
objects that looked fuzzy and didn’t move with respect to the “fixed”
stars. Therefore at that time these
fuzzy objects were judged uninteresting. Thus, the catalog was judged good so
you didn’t mistake theses boring objects for something that looks and fuzzy and
moves in the sky with respect to the background stars ,
i.e. comets. Now those fuzzy things have
turned to be galaxies and one of the most famous is M31 (number 31 in the
catalog), also called Andromeda. I wonder if we’re making similar mistakes now! I hope not!