AY 121: RADIATIVE PROCESSES	 		2000 Fall term

Profs:  Peter GOLDREICH			Sterl PHINNEY
        176 South Mudd x6193		125 Bridge, x4308
        pmg@gps.caltech.edu		esp@tapir.caltech.edu

TA:     Edo Berger
        13 Robinson, x4001
        ejb@astro.caltech.edu

WWW:    www.gps.caltech.edu/classes/ay121/

Meets in 106 Robinson
	Wed  9:00-10:30am
	Fri 10:00-11:30am

Grading:
 There will be weekly homeworks and a final exam, no midterm exam.
 Your grade will be a mostly monotonic function of
 g = [0.6(sum of homework scores) + 0.4(score on final exam)].

Text:
 (on sale in bookstore; some copies are on reserve along with
 many other interesting or classic books on the subject):

 G. B. Rybicki and A. P. Lightman "Radiative Processes in Astrophysics"
 
Collaboration policy:  Try every problem by yourself without discussing
 it with anyone.  You may consult books and published papers, but not
 old assignments.  If you can do the problems, you may compare answers
 with others currently in the course who have also finished. If your
 answers differ, you may both argue your case at a blackboard (but you
 may under no circumstances look at each other's papers, or copy things off
 the blackboard afterwards).  If needed, you may then go away and rework
 the problem alone.  If after a serious attempt on the problem you find
 yourself stuck, you may discuss that problem with me, or the TA, or any
 other student, but ONLY enough to get you unstuck.Note that the
 word `discuss' means `to speak together about'.  Looking at a written
 solution in such a situation is a violation of the rules.  The reason
 for all this is that in real research, no one else knows the answer
 (otherwise why would you be doing it?), so the most important thing you
 can learn from homework is how to think and solve for yourself, and be
 confident in your answers.