Astro 1346 - Spring 2022 Syllabus

Astronomy 1346 – S TARS , G ALAXIES , AND THE U NIVERSE S PRING 2022 U NIVERSITY OF T EXAS A RLINGTON Instructor: James J. Davis Email: James.Davis@UTA.edu Office: Science Hall 120G Office Hour: Tuesdays, 3:00PM – 4:00PM Book: A notebook. As for published books, there isn’t one required, but Discovering the Universe, 10 th Edition or 11 th Edition (Comins) is pretty cool in case you’re the kind of student that likes something to reference, read, or look at pretty pictures. Lab Text: This one is required for lab. It’s called “Practical Universe: Observations, Experiments, and Exercises” by Cuntz and Davis . You may get the physical book with paper made from dead trees and available from the UTA bookstore. You need a new version, not the used version, since a used version will be missing labs and you won’t be able to actually hand in work. Used lab manuals are like used bubble gum… probably worked better than the first owner than the second. You might rather have the e-book, available from published Kendall-Hunt at: ( https://he.kendallhunt.com/product/practical-universe-observations-experiments-exercises) The labs will probably be some combination of online and in-class on a rotating basis starting with the in-class meeting at the Round House Planetarium the week of February 7 th . That’s forever away, so don’t think too much about lab now Class Meets: T/Th 2:00 P.M. – 2:50 P.M. located in Science Hall 121 Class Meetings : As we wind through the Greek alphabet for new coronavirus names, it seems like we’re done dealing with the worst of the Resident Evil T -virus of unknown origins engineered and unleashed by an unknown agent or nation. So it’s safe to all be back in class to gether where all we have to worry about are the usual 4300 different strains of influenza and other little biological and non-biological wrecking machines... wait, what ’ s that now? We ’ re not done dealing with it? We ’ re doing two more weeks of online things? But … but … I already deleted T EAMS and said never again. So apparently now for the Jan 18 th , 20 th , 21 st , 27 th , Feb 1 st and 3 rd meetings, UTA wants us to do the long-distance relationship chatting on Facetime thing. Because this time virtual classes will have corona virus licked. While lecturing, I ’ ll be live and in person in SH 121, carrying on like life is normal and begrudgingly talking to a laptop. But after the 3 rd I ’ m never touching T EAMS again (I feel like I ’ ve said this seven times since spring break 2020). Y ou’re armed with an immune system honed by 4 billion years of survival and evolution so showing up to lecture should be just fine if that ’ s something you feel like doing. I ’ m not going to tell you how you should be consuming your classes and your learning experience. The evolution of life and its battle with viruses is something we’ll actually touch on in class when discussing extraterrestrials and the unlikely happening that life popped into existence on this little orbiting space rock of ours. I don’t foresee any thing that’s going to turn classes online for the whole semester or make the university experience anything other than in-person, so feel free to close T EAMS and never look at it again … eventually. At least for astronomy. Maybe other profs like speaking to a screenful of tiles with initials on them. Couldn’t be me, though.

You have paid a good chunk of pocket change for what is theoretically the chance to learn from an expert in a field, to interact with fellow students, ask questions before/during/after class, and get the full University-student experience, so all classes will happen on a normal schedule and lecture will be the most important part of it. The class is fairly self-contained in that essentially 100% of the work and material take place in the lecture session. I’m not assigning homework, condemning you to group projects, making you keep journals about your feelings and experiences, or think much about astronomy outside of 2-3PM twice weekly. Since the bulk of the material will be covered in the lecture class, it’s pretty important that you make a 2:00 -2:50 PM meeting a part of your Tuesdays and Thursdays. That being said, I don’t really take or care too much about attendance ; I’m not your parole officer so I won’t be keeping strict tabs on your whereabouts. I f you think you can handle a whole college science class and its associated exams without having been in said science class in preparation, I wish you the best. It doesn’t always work out that way for people, from what I’ve seen over like a decade of teaching, but maybe you’re the exception to the rule. Still, I at least t hink it’s important to be around to hear what’s happening in the world of astronomy and astrophysics. Also, you paid thousands of dollars for the course, why would you skip it? If you bought $1500 in airline tickets and skipped all the flights people would think you were awful with money and probably not deserving of having it in the first place. Everything covered in class is exclusive to the class meeting, so get yourself a notebook or crack open your laptop or surreptitiously take not-at-all-creepy pictures of the board. I don’t post the lectures to Canvas or make those available out of class; all the pretty visuals are the bonus for attending lecture and having that in-class university experience. Canvas: I’ll be using Canvas for a few things in class outside of the lecture. For one, it’s where you found the syllabus. Good job finding that. Most of the class ’ s important paperwork I’ll post to Canvas and your grades will be found there, too. Lectures aren’t posted to Canvas, as I don’t record them in the first place. I don’t want to die one day and have UTA using lectures for online courses until the year 2050 like some digital ghost doomed to roam the Earth teaching about the Kepler Space Telescope. The PowerPoints from class are usually written right before lecture and then erased right after, so that they remain updated and fresh but they aren ’ t posted to Canvas. They’re not made available outside of the lecture so make sure you’re there in class to get those. If you miss a day, you can use the Canvas-based study guides to see what you missed that day; or make a friend and ask them for their notes. Once upon a time, like 6 years ago, most science classes had three meetings per week and about 46 meetings per semester. However, the UT Regents decided that students today are so well-read and so good at science that they didn’t need so many science classes. So nowadays we have 30 meetings covering every topic from the atoms that make up the cores of stars to the birth and death of the Universe itself. That doesn’t leave much time for reiterating topics or having review days or diving into scientific side quests. I wouldn’t want you to miss out though if you did have a little intellectual curiosity. You ’ re in college, so I assume you must have some spark of curiosity about the world around you beyond just the twice-a-week meeting of your classes. So e very now and again I’ll probably post a little supplementary lecture on a side topic that we might not have time to fully go over in class but which you might find interesting (for example, when covering the search for aliens and extraterrestrials, there’ll be a little side lecture on Canvas or some other website for those who are only fans of astronomy about the plausibility of life in our own Solar System and the possible origin of life on Earth … things we wouldn’t have time to really dive into during class but which may be worth hearing).

you can’t awkwardly sit in the lecture room finishing a test while some organic chemistry class is going on around you. The most vital detailed notes and explanations are given in lecture, though. So carve out a little time for astronomy on your T/Th afternoons to listen in. If you are absent and miss a regular class, there isn’t need for a doctor’s note , pictures of flat tires, death certificates, covered shifts at work, flute recitals, selfies from the hospital, or harrowing stories about parking (parking and traffic are always bad, plan accordingly) , I’m not keeping track of your daily comings and goings . If you do miss a day, you might find yourself missing some chunks of information that will wind up on the test and you’ll have to gather up that information on your own time (looking through the study guides should give you an idea of what we covered on specific days; designating a friend to get some notes for you is always a solid idea). The grade weighting system is as follows: 15% Lowest In-Class Exam Score 25% Middle In-Class Exam Score 30% Highest In-Class Exam Score 30% Astronomy Lab Grade Of the three required exams, your lowest grade counts least toward your final grade; your best grade has the most weight on your final average. This way, a disaster of a test (due to whatever factors lead to a terrible grade) will not completely torpedo your overall grade. Grades are never dropped and there are no make-up exams (because that’s extra work and I did enough work in grad school to not have to do more now). So plan your life around those exam dates (keep your tires inflated, take your vitamin C and keep your immune system in overdrive, and tell the family to put plans to visit your grandma in Utah on hold). If an exam is missed, the score is 0% (which will be the lowest grade, unless you somehow get a negative on the next exam). Technically, even with a 0% on one test, you could score an 85% in the class itself (a B) by acing the other exams and the lab (and with extra credit available on the tests and in the lab, there is a possibility that you could reach an 89% for an A, even if you miss an exam. It’ s a long shot and would require a lot of work and preparation, but isn’t impossible). The only option for some semblance of a makeup for a missed exam is the following: let me know before the exam or before the grades are posted that some calamity caused the absence. Don’t tell me a week later that you had ebola and just recovered in time to let me know you were going to be missing an exam. From that point on, be in attendance for each and every lecture class (to keep track of your attendance, at the end of each class turn in an index card with your name and a pleasant drawing on it). Then, when the final exam rolls around on May 10 th , you’ll take a fully cumulative final exam covering all sections of the lecture rather than the normal exam 3. That grade will effectively count twice in your overall average and make up for the 0%. It might be a tougher road but it’s better than a zero. The cumulative grade breakdown is: 100 – 89% A 88.99 – 78% B 77.99 – 67% C 66.99 – 57% D < 57% F

Lab: Information about the lab – including the manual, schedule, and course lay out – will be available in the lab syllabus itself on Canvas , but here’s a summary in case you wanted it. As part of the astronomy course, the lab will give you hands-on demonstrations of how astronomers do their work and how a scientific approach to observations of the natural world has led to our current understanding of the Universe. Astronomers throughout history – Copernicus, Kepler, Hubble, Zwicky, Hoyle, Heber, Lowell, Slipher, Kapetyn, Lemaître – didn’t just correctly guess about planetary orbits and the energy source of stars and the origin of the Universe, they used observations, mathematics, and logical scientific reasoning to come to their conclusions and to convince others of the legitimacy of their theories. Using some of the data and tools available to astronomers, you will get an idea of how those observations translate into an understanding of the mechanics of the real world. Labs begin the week of February 7 th and run through the middle of April . For the lab, you’ll need your own manual to work out of, the one named Practical Universe and available exclusively at the bookstore in physical form or at Kendall Hunt in the e-book form. If you’ve taken Astronomy 1345 (the one about the Solar System) then you already have the manual. It’s the same one. Cheating: Cheating and plagiarism (using as one's own ideas, writings, materials, correct answers, wrong answers, or images from someone else without acknowledgment or permission) can result in any one of a variety of sanctions. Such penalties may range from an adjusted grade on the particular exam, paper, project, or assignment (all of which may lead to a failing grade in the course) to, under certain conditions (like academic probation), suspension or expulsion from a class, program or the college. So don’t do it. This is especially true in the labs, where some people conjure up some really dumb answers that other people reuse without wondering where the answer came from. Those folks get their grades stomped into dust. College isn’t compulsory and you’re not going to be conscripted into the infantry or sent to a desert prison island if you don’t get a four -year degree. If you need to cheat through your science elective, it might be a subtle hint that college and its multifaceted multi- discipline academic course load isn’t for you . I tried running a marathon once, got bored, drove to a Starbucks near the finish line and crossed. I’m n ot going to pretend that I was passionate about being and ready to call myself a marathoner. It was the sign that I needed to never try that again in a world where cars, bicycles, and horses exist. Needing a quick way out because I couldn’t cut it definite ly told me my true calling was elsewhere.

Class Schedule: What will we be covering class to class? This is kind of a rough idea; sometimes I get more interested in one topic and change my mind about what I want to talk about. But generally, this is a close-enough outline of what we’ll go over and when we’ll do it. Again, it might change and shift depending on what’s interesting to me. Day of Class Class Number Week Number Topic January 18 1 1 SETI and Extraterrestrials January 20 2 1 SETI and Extraterrestrials January 25 3 2 The Drake Equation and Exoplanets January 27 4 2 The Drake Equation and Exoplanets February 1 5 3 Exoplanets February 3 6 3 Exoplanets February 8 7 4 Energy February 10 8 4 Energy February 15 9 5 Energy February 17 10 5 Energy February 22 11 6 The Sun February 24 12 6 E XAM #1 March 1 13 7 The Sun March 3 14 7 The Sun March 8 15 8 Stars March 10 16 8 Stars March 15 - 9 S PRING B REAK March 17 - 9 S TILL S PRING B REAK March 22 17 10 Stars March 24 18 10 Stellar Evolution March 29 19 11 Stellar Evolution March 31 20 11 Stellar Evolution and Black Holes April 5 21 12 Stellar Evolution and Black Holes April 7 22 12 The Milky Way April 12 23 13 Galaxies April 14 24 13 E XAM #2 April 19 25 14 Galaxies April 21 26 14 Galaxies and Dark Matter April 26 27 15 Cosmology April 28 28 15 Cosmology and the Big Bang May 3 29 16 Cosmology and the Big Bang May 10 – – Final Exam (2:00 – 4:30 PM)