AST320-Intro to Astrophysics (Winter 2021)

 
 
 

There willl be a  video assignment in the event that the final exam will not be held in person.

Here are some example problems for a video project.

1) Is electron degeneracy important for everyday materials?

  1. 2)Why did the universe contain more protons than neutrons in the beginning?

  2. 3)Why do we think that ‘dark matter’ is ‘cold’?

4) Derive the mass-radius relation for stars that are dominated by radiation pressure.

Make up your own question, following the same fashion. Run it by me first. One helpful resource is the list of ‘food-for-thought’ questions in the lecture notes. These can be qualitative or quantitative, but it should be in the technical level appropriate for a 3rd year course (e.g., a nice use of physical principle, a convincing order-of-magnitude estimate...), not something you could have accomplished as a 2nd year student (or high school, for that matter).

In a video format (5 mins., you can show slides, writing, voice-over...), you should explain the problem to the viewer (me and the TAs), why it is interesting, how to think about it using concepts from this  class, and what the answer is. Think of this as a stand-alone Khan academy video.


The date to decide by is April 1st(meaning after my approval, so take a few days for some back-and-forth communications) and the submission deadline is April 15th, 12pm.