 The Physical Universe |
||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||
MainSyllabusBlackBoard Page |
Astronomy 3, The Physical Universe
Fall 2003
Contact Info:Chris Burns
The easiest way to get in touch with me is by email. I typically check it during the day and the evenings. My tentative office hours are Wednesday from 3pm to 5pm which will be firmed up after the first set of lectures. At other times, I keep an open-door policy: if the door is open, come on in. However, I share the office with Eric Jensen (I'm in the first cubicle as you enter, Eric is in the second), so if the door is closed and locked, please do not knock: I'm not there. Likewise, if I'm not in my cubicle, please respect Prof. Jensen's privacy by not asking him where I am. Lastly, you can always arrange a meeting time by phone or email. Check your email and the course webpage. I will be making all important announcements in class, but I will send out hints on the assignments, rescheduling of labs and suchlike by email as well. I will also post them on the webpage, so it is to your advantage to check your email and the course webpage often.
Course Materials:There are two required textbooks for this course:
You will need a scientific calculator (one with the trigonometric functions, scientific notation and logarithms) for some of the lab exercises and assignments. I will try to keep the readings relatively short. However, many topics in the course can take a while to ``digest'', since they involve subject matter which is new and removed from your every-day experience. So, while it might not take long to read the material, it will most certainly take longer to understand. I will not cover everything in the readings in lectures, so if you get stuck on something, don't hesitate to bring it up in class or come see me about it.
Course Resources:There is a course webpage that will have copies of assignments, lab exercises and any electronic presentations seen in class. You can find it at http://astro.swarthmore.edu/astro3 and then by clicking on the "Blackboard Page". There will also be general cosmology and astronomy-related links. If you need an additional copy of something handed out in class, you can get it there. I've placed several books on reserve in Cornell. I will have a complete list by the first lecture. Often, it can be useful to see different author's points of view on a subject, so I encourage you to make use of these books. From time to time, I will assign readings from articles in popular journals. These will be available from the Blackboard page. This will require that you are enrolled in the course. Make sure you log on to Blackboard and are able to access the Astro-3 course.
Labs:The only lab in astronomy is the sky itself. We will have one or two observing sessions using a variety of telescopes. We are quite limited in what we can see, however, so we will also have labs which utilize computer-simulated telescopes. In all, there will be no more than 4 labs to attend. Because observing must be done at night, all labs are scheduled for 7:00-10:00pm. Labs are tentatively scheduled for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. You will sign up for one of these evenings during the first week of classes. Because weather is an uncertainty with observing, some outdoor labs may be rescheduled to a following week.
Grading:I prefer to give out lots of short assignments rather than fewer long ones. Each Friday, you will have either an assignment due, or an in-class quiz (which will be announced the previous week). I will grade the quizzes more thoroughly than the assignments; I may simply give you full credit for an assignment if you made a good attempt. You should therefore make sure you understand the assignments based on the solutions I provide and the classroom discussions we have rather than your grade. There will be two writing assignments in this course. The first will be a free-form paper on a subject relating to the course. The second will be a formal lab write-up. There will be a number of writing assistants assigned to the course to aid you. As for the breakdown of the final grade, it will have some flexibility. In my opinion, the assignments and quizzes are your chance to figure things out and discover where you need to improve in order to do well on the final exam. So, if you have trouble during term, but pull it all together and shine on the final, I will give more weight to the final. Likewise, anyone can have a ``bad day'' and so if you do consistently good work during term, but have trouble on the final, I will give more weight to the assignments and quizzes. I will calculate your final grade based on both schemes below and give the higher of the two.
Late Policy:All assigned work should be handed in by 5pm on the date it is due. You can hand it in to me during class or drop it in the upper slot outside my office. Late assignments will be docked 10% of the total grade for each day they are late (for example, an assignment that would have received a grade of 40/50 but which was a day late would get a grade of 35). Late papers will be penalized by reducing the final letter grade one level for each day it is late (for example, a paper that would have received a B and which was a day late would get a final grade of B-). If you miss a quiz without making prior arrangements with me, you will receive a grade of zero. All make-up quizzes and exams will be oral. If you have extenuating circumstances (injury, death in the family, etc), please let me know as soon as possible so that we can work something out. About this document ...This document was generated using the LaTeX2HTML translator Version 2002 (1.62)
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996,
Nikos Drakos,
Computer Based Learning Unit, University of Leeds.
The command line arguments were: The translation was initiated by Chris Burns on 2003-08-30 | |||||||||||||||||||||