Hello all,
  As you know, the AST 203 final will be held Saturday, May 17, at
1:30 PM in our usual lecture hall (McDonnell A02); the exam will last
three hours.  We will have a review session for it on Wednesday evening,
May 7 starting at 7:30 PM in the Peyton Hall auditorium.  We'll make
the graded Homework 6 available before the final.  

  The exam will cover the full course, although there will be a bit
more emphasis on the material covered since the midterm.  It will
consist of three parts.  The first two parts will be based on Chris
Chyba's and my part of the course, while the third part will be based
on Rich Gott's part of the course.  The first part will be like the
first part of the midterm, consisting of a series of calculational
problems, set up to make the arithmetic as easy as possible.  The
second part will have you write several essays (again reminiscent of
the midterm).  The third part, on Rich Gott's section of the course,
will be a mixture of calculational problems and a few short answer
questions (from one sentence to a paragraph or two.  As with the
midterm, the calculational questions will emphasize concepts you've
already worked on in homework.

  As you know, the course is defined by the material covered in
lecture.  Therefore, you should study your own lecture notes and the
lecture outlines given on the course web site.  There is a
lecture-by-lecture list of recommended reading from your textbooks on
the web site as well; use this as guidance of how to read the
textbooks.  You are *not* responsible for material in the Bennett et
al. textbook that has not been covered in class or in the homeworks.
However, you *are* responsible for having read all of "Time Travel in
Einstein's Universe"; there may be a few questions on the final based
on material in that book that were not covered in lecture.  

  As already mentioned, the final will have problems that will be
reminiscent of those on the homeworks, so study the homeworks, in
particular the solution sets on the web.  Note the strong usage in the
solutions of the setting up of ratios of various quantities; this is a
technique that will serve you well in the exam.  

  The exam is closed-book, as you know (therefore do not bring the
course textbook, your notes, any on-line material from the course web
page or elsewhere, etc., etc...), but you will be furnished a
``cheat-sheet''.  You are familiar with the formulas sheet on the
course web site:
http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~strauss/ast203/formulas .
and what will be made available on the exam will be identical to what
you can find on that sheet.  Please look this over carefully before
the exam, and make sure you are familiar with it.

  Calculators are allowed, but the problems will be set up to make the
arithmetic particularly easy.  And if you do want to use a calculator,
make sure that its batteries are fully charged!

  At the review session, I'll summarize what I think are the most
important concepts you should have learned about in the class, and
will answer questions.  I will also go over the formulas sheet
mentioned above. 

The following is a list of these most important concepts (expanded
from the similar list that I sent around at the time of the midterm):

The importance of liquid water for life.

The fact that all life on Earth shares the same basic biochemistry
(DNA and proteins).  

The difficulty of defining "life". 

The Aristotelian and modern worldviews, and the relationships between
the nature of celestial and Earthbound objects.  The modern
understanding of the scientific method. 

The Copernican revolution, and the Copernican Principle. 

Kepler's laws of planetary motion, especially his third law. 

Newton's laws of motion; Newton's law of gravity.  The concept of an
orbit. 

The concept of the Celestial Sphere, and coordinate systems on the
sky. 

The concept of kinetic energy, and how it relates to temperature. 

The electromagnetic spectrum and the nature of light. 

The structure of atoms, and emission and absorption from individual atoms. 

Radioactive decay, and the age-dating of rocks. 

Black-body radiation.

The inverse square law of light.  The distinction between brightness
and luminosity. 

The effect of impacts on the Earth, and the oldest life on Earth. 

The equilibrium temperatures of planets, the greenhouse effect, and
the carbon dioxide cycle. 

Water on Mars and Europa. 

Search for extraterrestrial life, including SETI. 

The relationship between distance, angles, and sizes of objects (the
small-angle formula).  Using parallax to measure distances to stars. 
 
The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. 

The spectra and colors of stars. 

The chemical composition of stars. 

The energy sources of stars; thermonuclear reactions, and the origin
of the elements. 

The stellar main sequence, and the dependence of mass, temperature, and
lifetime in various parts of the H-R diagram. 

The evolution of stars after the main sequence.  Red giants,
supernovae, white dwarfs, and neutron stars.  Degeneracy pressure. 

Stars are born out of gas and dust in the interstellar medium. 

The effects of dust on starlight. 

The structure of the Milky Way, including the presence of dark
matter. 

Measurements of distance in astronomy. 

Galaxy redshift and the expansion of the universe. 

The Hubble Constant and the age of the universe. 

What made Einstein's work so important. 

Special theory of relativity; its basic postulates, and its
consequences for our understanding of time, length, and simultaneity.
The Lorentz factor. 

The equivalence of mass and energy (E = mc^2)

The concept of a space-time diagram. 

General relativity, the Equivalence principle, gravity as a
manifestation of accelerated reference frames, and the concept of
curved space-time.  Why we think this theory is actually correct!

The concept of a geodesic.  

Black holes and the concept of the event horizon at the Schwartzschild
radius.  The fact that black holes can radiate (Hawking radiation). 

If general relativity can allow curved space-time, it can in principle
allow time travel, in *very* special circumstances.  Gott's time
machine using cosmic strings. 

General relativity and its prediction for the expansion or contraction
of the universe.  The Cosmological Constant.  

The formation of hydrogen and helium in the early universe. 

The hot early universe and the Cosmic Microwave Background.

The distinction between flat, positively curved, and negatively curved
geometries for the universe. 

  Possible geometries of the universe very close to the time of the
Big Bang.  The inflationary model as an explanation of how the Big
Bang got started. 

  The Cosmological constant, the acceleration of the universe's
  expansion, and negative pressure stuff.  

  The concept of a critical density of the universe.  

  The Copernican Principle, both in space (we are not in a special
location in the universe), and in time (now is not a special time in
the history of the universe).

					-Michael Strauss