Recitation topics, by week
(Times and locations of recitations live on the
Contact page.)
| The week of... | Topics |
| 14 January 2008 | No recitations |
| 21 January 2008 |
No recitation on Monday |
| 28 January 2008 | VIDEO
VIEWING: The Scale of the Cosmos and (optionally) Powers of Ten Homework 1: more practice on unit conversion; discussion of life near stellar-mass and supermassive black holes |
| 4 February 2008 |
Homework 2: practice with length contraction, time dilation, velocity addition; discussion of concept of reference frames, and the postulates of the special theory of relativity. |
| 11 February 2008 |
Homework 2: practice on use of the Minkowski absolute interval. |
| 18 February 2008 |
Monday: Q&A on Exam
1 |
| 25 February 2008 |
Homework 3:
degeneracy pressure; relativity of mass; sizes of black holes, white dwarfs
and neutron stars. |
| 3 March 2008 |
Homework 3: energy/mass equivalence, energetics of black holes. |
| 10 March 2008 | Spring break |
| 17 March 2008 |
Homework 4: practice with Doppler effect calculations |
| 24 March 2008 |
Homework 4: observational signatures of black holes, calculations involving energy and luminosity of black holes. |
| 31 March 2008 |
Monday: Q&A on Exam 2 Tuesday-Thursday: Homework 5 help -- discussion of gravity waves, entropy, Horizon Area theorem. |
| 7 April 2008 |
Homework 5: discussion of the insides of black holes, nature of the singularity, Hawking radiation, and the role of metaphysics in science. |
| 14 April 2008 |
VIDEO VIEWING:
Bad Astrophysics video clips |
| 21 April 2008 |
VIDEO VIEWING:
Bad Astrophysics video clips |
| 28 April 2008 |
Monday: Q&A on Exam 3 |