Freshman Seminar Astronomy 110-6

Black Holes, Neutron Stars, Pulsars and All That

Winter Quarter 2009

Instructor: Mel Ulmer

Office: Dearborn Observatory #3 (General Campus Interactive Map)
Info of Dearborn Observatory area only Dearborn Observatory

Phone: 847.491.5633

Email: m-ulmer2@northwestern.edu

Office Hours: by appointment

Lectures: TuTh 11:00 A.M. -12:20 PM in LG62

Readings:

 Black Holes And the Universe  (by Igor Novikov, ISBN:  0 521 55870 0 paperback)

Dragon's Egg (by Robert L. Forward, ISBN: 0-345-43529-X)

Other Sources  for reading: Scientific American And Sky and Telescope

See also the Web such as:

The Jodrell Bank Pulsar Group Web Page - "A web site for the truly pulsar addicted"

The Goolge Black Hole Science Directory - "The web site for the Black Hole addicted"

Gravity's Relentless Pull:  - "An interactive, multimedia website on black holes "

Papers :

Suggested Paper Topics:

Below are few sample paper topics (you can choose others and with approval from Prof. Ulmer write on one of those). It is more important that you write about something you know and have an interest in than on a "must write on" topic.

Some Papers Topics:

Bios: such as Einstien, Newton, Hubble, Chandrasekhar and much more
Milli-second Pulsars
Pulsars as good clocks
Quantum Gravity
Theory of Every Thing
Time Travel
Time Dilation
Bi-Polar Out Flow compared to black hole produced jets
Do Black Holes Exist?
Twin Pardox
Magnetars
Anomolous X-ray Pulsars
The Black Hole Pardigm for Active Galactic Nuclei
Neutron star Formation
Black Hole Formation
NASA's support of Black Hole reseach
NSF's support of Black Hole reseach
The Space Race, The Shuttle, The Space Station, The Moon
LIGO/LISA (experiments to find gravitational radiation)
Have Hulst & Taylor already proved grav. rad. exists, so why bother?
Is Time Quantized ?

General Course Description:

There are two books to read for this class. We will read in parallel the two books for this class.  For The Black Holes And The Universe  book the  reading will be 11 pages/per discussion session, starting at page 7; I can discuss the last few pages.  For the Dragon's Egg start with page 1  and read 21 pages/discussion, except the last one where 6 more pages need to be read.  Therefore the required reading is only about 64 pages week.  At 1 minute per page, you won't be "hurting."  Each class will have a student discussion leader or two on each reading assignment. The dicussion topics can be science issuses, history related (the black hole book), or how you found the writing (e.g. exceptionally good or bad, and give examples and talk about why).  At the end of the quarter, the discussion time will be replaced by 10 minute presentations by each student.   Facilities will be provided for either overhead or power point presentations .

Personal Statement:

I was fortunate enough to begin my scientific career when black holes, neutron stars, pulsars and all that were being discovered. I plan to use this perspective to encourage the students to think critically and to learn about the excitement of entering a new field. As my role as a Freshman Seminar leader I will initiate discussion, questions, and to teach the student how to examine his/her own writing in a critical manner. My interest in X-ray astronomy has lead me to study both compact objects and the large scale structure of the universe.

Grading Policy:

Four writing assignments will be required; three of moderate length (45% of the grade) and one in-depth essay (25% of the grade).

Class participation will account for 15% of the grade.

Each student will be required to facilitate a discussion of a topic from one of the two books we will read in the class. Each student will also give a 10 minute presentation (15% of the grade) of a topic of their choice that is within the context of the class.

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Recommended but not Required: Attendance for at least one observing session.

Dearborn Observatory has an 18 inch refractor that allows spectacular viewing of the planets, the moon  and other objects. Observing sessions will be held on an evening to be announced later.   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. Viewing will be done in parallel with the class called the High Lights of Astronomy. The times of the viewing will be determined later. The sessions will be held regardless of whether it is cloudy or not. A tour will be given in any event.  Repeat attendance to achieve actual viewing is possible.

Course Outline

Week 1 (Jan 5-7)

Discussion of expectations on writing and introducing each other, and a lecture
on Black Holes etc
Begin Readings

Week 2 (Jan 13-Jan 15)

Discuss Reading  (one student/session discussion leader)

Week 3 (Jan 20-22)

Discuss Readings

Week 4 (Jan 27-29) No Class 27 Jan.
Make up with a field trip. Date TBD, on a Saturday

Discuss Readings

Week 5 (Feb 3-Feb 7)

Discuss Readings Plus

Week 6 (Feb 10-12)

Discuss Readings

Week 7 (Feb 17-19)

Discuss Readings

Week 8 (Feb 24-26)

Discuss Readings

Week 9 (March 3-5)

Discuss Readings

Readings Week (March 10-12)
Presentations: 8 min ppt based on last paper

no more readings!

General Comments

Here are some general comments lecture

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 are some pretty important religious based questions that we address, such as exactly where did man and the Earth stand compared to the Universe.  On the curiosity side, we are simply driven to learn more. For,  even as we learn more, and we delve into the limitless universe,  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.  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 to teach you something about black holes and neutron stats,  and also to teach you enough so that you will be able to make educated choices about future government funding of astrophysics.  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 a science class?  This is because you are supposed to receive some training to work like a scientist,  right?  Thus, I hope you will  benefit from this class not only in gaining writing and presentation practice, but also you will  learn about what it means to work like a scientist.

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. 

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? 

(3) Avoid as often as you can qualitative descriptions versus quantitative descriptions, e.g. it's a long way to Tipperary.  What does "a 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, cost projections, etc..

Posted Reading material

Science article on funding

Professional Presentation Pointer I

Professional Presentation Pointer 2

My Own Pointers

Part 1

Part 2

Reading Scheudle by discuion meeting; so for discussion 1 have read through page for: Dragon's Egg 21 and then 42 and so on..63 84 105 126 147 168 189 210 231 252 273 294 320
And for Black Holes
11 22 33 44 55 66 77 88 99 110 121 132 143 154 174