Back to Teaching: Intro Astro for Majors

One of the older Caltech undergrads in my Ay20 class (j/k)

My posts here will be a bit sporadic since the academic year just started with a bang here at Caltech. I'll be teaching Astro 20: Intro to Astronomy for Majors. We met for the first time yesterday and I have 16 bright, enthusiastic Techers in my class, ranging from Sophomore Ay majors, to Junior physicists, up to the lone Chemistry-major Senior. I'll be blogging regularly about Ay20 here, along with my faithful second-year TA, Jackie. I'll cross-list posts of interest here at Mahalo, but you should add the Ay20 blog to your RSS feed to keep up with the latest. My students will also maintain their own blogs, which will be linked from the Ay20 site. Please follow their writing and leave encouraging comments and requests for more excellent astronomy posts (I'll try to update here as the student blogs come online)!

Here's my latest post on The Power of Dumb Questions.

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A view from your shut down

The Daily Dish has been posting reader emails reporting on their " view from the shutdown ." If you think this doesn't affect you, or if you know all too well how bad this is, take a look at the growing collection of poignant stories. No one is in this alone except for the nutjobs in the House. I decided to email Andrew with my own view. I plan to send a similar letter to my congressperson. Dear Andrew, I am a professor of astronomy at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). The CfA houses one of the largest, if not the largest collection of PhD astronomers in the United States, with over 300 professional astronomers and roughly 100 doctoral and predoctoral students on a small campus a few blocks west of Harvard Yard. Under the umbrella of the CfA are about 20 Harvard astronomy professors, and 50 tenure-track Smithsonian researchers. A large fraction of the latter are civil servants currently on furlough and unable to come to work. In total, 147 FTEs...

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back-talk begins

me: "owen, come here. it's time to get a new diaper" him, sprinting down the hall with no pants on: "forget about it!" he's quoting benny the rabbit, a short-lived sesame street character who happens to be in his favorite "count with me" video. i'm turning my head, trying not to let him see me laugh, because his use and tone with the phrase are so spot-on.

Mahalo.ne.Trash

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