Welcome to Astrophysics 542: "Beyond Order of Magnitude".
GENERAL INFORMATION
Class Meets: Tuesday and Thursday), 4:30 - 5:30 p.m., Peyton Hall Rm. 145 (Note!).
Professor:
Adam Burrows
Office: Peyton Hall, Room 105
Phone: 609-258-3590
Office Hours: MWF 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m., or by appointment
email: burrows@astro.princeton.edu
WWW: Class Web Page: http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~burrows/classes/542
Prerequisites:
A good knowledge of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy at the 1st-year Graduate level
Textbooks:
No assigned textbook for the course.
Course Description:
This is a required seminar course for the graduate students and
its content has varied over the semesters. This semester I will conduct a
semi-formal course very loosely entitled "Beyond Order of Magnitude." A
presumptuous second title might be "Thinking like an Astrophysicist,"
since the focus will be on the meaning of derived formulae, the
connections manifest between disparate realms of Nature as reflected in
representative equations, and the aesthetics of simple physical laws and
expressions. Along the way we will address dimensional analysis (it is
always a good idea), order-of-magnitude estimates, "Fermi-like" problems,
and how to take apart an equation to reveal its deeper meaning. As you
may surmise, the program articulated above may be a tad ambitous, but
various examples of each approach will be provided.
The students are expected to take good mental and physical notes, and
each will demonstrate on the board these various aspects for an expression
of their choosing. There will be no formal talk or powerpoint requirement
this semester, though a few readings will be suggested that might be of
benefit to the serious student. Other categories of attendees are most welcome to attend.
Papers related to the topics chosen by each student are provided below. While not
always directly and precisely comporting with the titles and topics chosen, these papers
overlap with what was presented to a useful degree.
Minimum size of the star (Lev)
Bondi-Hoyle Accretion (Wenrui)
Viscous Slug Motion/Shock-absorber problem (Erin F.)
Viscous Slug Motion/Shock-absorber problem, part deux (Erin F.)
Gravitational Radiation (Goni)
Air-supported Hockey Puck (Avery)
Freezing Lake, part deux (Melinda)
Rayleigh-Plesset problem (Hayk)
Rayleigh-Plesset problem, sonoluminescence (Hayk)
Cosmic-Ray Diffusion (Vassilis)
Cosmic-Ray Diffusion, part deux (Vassilis)
Liquid Rope Coiling (Erin K.-F.)
Last modified: Saturday, April 23, 2018