Astronomy 123: First Homework Assignment
Date Due: May 1, 1996

How to turn in: email the assignment (or the web address) to dmason@zebu

Important Information: Since the campus network allows student-to-student communication and since this network is part of the on campus learning infrastructure, students should make use of it. Past experience shows that students won't make use of it unless they are assigned to do so.

For this homework assignment, you are

REQUIRED

to collaborate with at least one other student. You can work in group sizes as large as 5. Each individual in that group could be assigned a particular question which would allow the group to complete the assignment in a more efficient manner.

OPTIONAL

If you want to prepare a web page in response to this assignment that would be great.

The Assignment:

Provide some information in response to the following questions. This is best done by using an internet search engine and typing in a key word related to the question. A good compliation of linked search engines can be found here .

You may use the Lab in 112 Willamette as your Internet Access Point. It is generally open in the afternoons for student use.

  1. What was the COBE mission of NASA and what were its main results?

  2. What is a neutrino and why might it be cosmologically relevant?

  3. What is Dark Matter?

  4. Here is a race to see if you can find this faster on the Internet than you can in a library. Quote the last two sentences of Aristotle's essay on Physics which was written approximately in the year 350 BC.

  5. Watch a movie showing the formation of structure in the Universe and tell me where you found it. These are nominally called N-body simulations.

  6. In what year and for what physical process did Einstein win the Nobel Prize?