| Instructor | Alexander L. Rudolph, Keck 1245, 621-8875, rudolph@hmc.edu |
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| Text | Bradley W. Carroll and Dale A. Ostlie, An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics (Addison-Wesley, Menlo Park, Calif., 1996). |
| Meetings | MWF 10, Galileo-Edwards |
| Grade | The final grade in this class will be weighted approximately as follows:
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| Exams | All midterms will be in-class and will be 60 minutes long. The final
exam will be a comprehensive 3 hour exam. The tentative dates for the midterms
and final are:
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| Homework Assignments | Homework assignments are posted on this Web site, and will be due in class at 10:00am unless otherwise noted. Any problems not taken from the book will be available in class or in the box outside my office door beginning immediately after class. Please take care to write complete solutions that use English where appropriate (see below). If in doubt about solution style, come talk to me. |
| Reading Quizzes | Reading quizzes constitute an integral part of this course. There is much more material to learn in this course than can be covered in class. Therefore, to encourage you to do the reading carefully, and to alert me to the questions and issues that are troubling people, there will an assigned reading quiz for each reading assignment. This quiz must be taken by 8:00am the day the reading is due in order to receive credit. This allows me time to collect the results before class. |
| Problem Solving | Problem solving is an exercise in understanding and communication.
A problem solution should not simply be a sequence of equations without
explanation, nor should it be all explanation and no algebra. The grader
will deduct points for poor or improper style in solving problems. If you
have questions about how to write up problem solutions, I would be delighted
to speak with you about it.
N.B. I reserve the right to supply too little information to solve a problem or more information than is necessary to solve a problem. Real life is seldom so tidy as textbook exercises. In the former case, you should feel free to supply and state clearly reasonable assumptions to provide a solution; in the latter, you should of course neglect the unnecessary information. |
| Tutor and Grader | Austin Brown, West 401, x72013, Hours: Sun. 7-11, other hours by appt. |
| References | There are very few good astronomy texts at a level appropriate for
this course. Listed below are a few texts you might find helpful as additional
references. They will be on reserve in Sprague Library. Please come see
me for references on more specific astronomical topics, particularly to
help with the projects.
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