Midterm Grade and Reading Quizzes: SELECT YOUR NAME

I have imported your scores for HW 1, Exam 1, and the Reading Quizzes into Blackboard. For the Reading Quizzes, I gave 50% credit for any answer and 100% credit for correct answers. If you are missing some responses and feel that one of the SELECT YOUR NAME entries is yours, please contact me for partial credit.

Guest Lecturer on Thursday: Dan Evans

On Thursday, Dr. Dan Evan will be giving a guest lecture in PHY 272 on "The Truth About Black Holes." Before his talk, you may want to check out appearances by Dr. Evans on The History Channel and the Discovery Channel.

Summer Radio Astronomy Research Training

Dan Reichart at UNC-Chapel Hill runs a summer program called ERIRA (Educational Research in Radio Astronomy) at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia. Please let me know if you are interested in applying for this!

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HW 3

HW 3 (due March 23rd 30th): 


"C-level" problems (25 points each): 5.10, 5.11, 6.7
"B-level" problem (10 points each): 4.9, 6.11
"A-level" problem (5 points each): 4.6


Please create an Excel spreadsheet or Mathematica sheet that does your calculations and includes comments.  As promised, I will provide the possible numerical solutions.

Hint for Problem 3.12

The easy part of this problem is realizing that you start with equation (3.22) to derive equation (3.15). After taking the derivative, you will need to make a substitution to simplify things: x = h c / lambda k T. After doing that, solve numerically to find the numerical value of x.