Evaluation will be based on two hour exams, a paper and a final exam.
Not open to first-year students and sophomores. Non-major course. No prerequisites. Closed to Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Physics majors.
Williams College ASTR 334 : Black Holes and the Life Stories of
Stars
Spring, 2002
Instructor: Marek Demianski
This course deals with the evolution of stars in a nonmathematical fashion. Recent astronomical observations with the most powerful telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory, revealed that the Universe contains many more black holes than previously expected. Starting with a general description of stars and their evolution and the physical processes taking place in their centers, this course will discuss the final outcomes of stellar evolution: white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes. We will dicsuss how neutron stars were discovered and later led to the very important discovery of gravitational waves and extrasolar planets. Detailed discussion of the bizarre properties of black holes will concentrate on relativistic effetcs, methods of observation and finally observational proofs of their existence. Hypothetical but very interesting possibilities of time travel and quantum effects connected with black holes will be covered.
General Lecture and discussion, three hours a week.
Evaluation will be based on two hour exams, a paper and a final exam.
Not open to first-year students and sophomores. Non-major course. No prerequisites.
Closed to Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Physics majors.