ASTR404 -- Course Information ============================= .. only:: comment .. admonition:: Under Construction .. only:: comment .. image:: ../_static/images/under_const.png :height: 6ex :align: left .. only:: comment **WARNING:** This page is still under construction. Even though I did not put in false information deliberately, some things here are subject to change. I will add more material and clarify some points as they become definite. Feel free to ask, if in doubt. At this point I only copy-pasted a previous syllabus and edited a few parts. .. admonition:: Under Construction .. image:: ../_static/images/under_const.png :height: 6ex :align: left **WARNING:** This page is still under construction. Even though I did not put in false information deliberately, some things here are subject to change. I will add more material and clarify some points as they become definite. Feel free to ask, if in doubt. At this point I only copy-pasted a previous syllabus and edited a few parts. Some Questions with Answers --------------------------------------- **Can we change the scheduled time and day?** No. I have other responsibilities so there are very few possible slots. In any case, it takes a very big effort to make a change, and in fact it might be impossible to find a time that works for me and vast majority is happy with. We can attempt at the first meeting but it probably will not work. **Will this be an online course?** No. I will provide some online material, but it is mostly face-to-face. **Do I need to attend the course? Will you take attendance? Is it a problem (i.e., “sıkıntı olur mu?”) if I miss the classes?** Yes. I expect you to attend the class. This is an elective course, if you cannot attend, take another course. **Is my mathematical background sufficient for this course?** This is very subjective, so it is hard to answer. You need to have basic familiarity with algebraic and differential equations. Some of it you can learn on the way, but not all of it. The main audience for this course is Physics major juniors and seniors, if you are a sophomore, I suggest to wait a year. **Is my physics/astronomy background sufficient for this course?** Probably, yes. I will not assume much beyond freshman level physics and almost no astronomy. The textbook assumes that you are familiar with a few subjects beyond that level, but I will provide resources for those topics. Basic Course Information ------------------------ **Code, name, semester:** This document contains information on ASTR404 (8640404), "Introduction to Cosmology", for the spring semester of 2025-26 academic year. **Time and place:** The class will be held on Tuesdays 10:40-12:30, Room P422 (4th floor) and Wednesday ay 14:40 in the same place. This may change, if it does, I will let you know. **Webpage:** The course has a page on ODTUClass, where I will be posting all essential information. **Prerequisites:** The course has a number of prerequisites listed in the catalogue. It is mainly to assure that you are familiar with most basic concepts. **Content:** The course will be an introduction to *physical* cosmology. This is complementary and quite different from mathematical cosmology. We will use mathematical models and we will connect them to observations. We will not go into details of either, but we will look at how physics is used to make the connection. Textbook and Additional Resources --------------------------------- We will be using * Barbara Ryden's *Introduction to Cosmology* (Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition 2012, ISBN: 978-1107154834) as the main textbook and * Dragan Huterer's *A Course in Cosmology: From Theory to Practice* (Cambridge University Press, 2023, ISBN: 978-1316513590) as supplement. More advanced books that may be useful for specialized topics include * *Cosmological Physics*, John Andrew Peacock, CUP 1998. * *Cosmology*, Steven Weinberg, OUP 2008. Some popular accounts that are useful for this course include * *The First Three Minutes*, Steven Weinberg, Basic Books, updated edition 1993. * *The Inflationary Universe*, Alan H. Guth, Basic Books, 1998. There are also useful videos on YouTube on various topics. Guth's OCW lectures at MIT are probably the most useful. Course Course Coverage and Objectives ------------------------------------- The course will cover all the topics in Ryden's book, but the coverage for "structure formation" (last two chapters) will be brief. The idea is that after this course you will be able to pick up a cosmology paper and get the general idea of its goals and methods. Instructor ---------- Mehmet Atakan Gürkan (I use Atakan), email: agurkan@metu.edu.tr, Office: PZ36 (Physics Building ground floor). Email is the best way to reach me. Please do not contact me with WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram etc. (all of these happened). When contacting me by email, please pay attention to these points. These may seem crude or harsh, but they all stemmed from my past experience. #. Your email can be in English or Turkish. #. Your message should begin with a greeting and end with your name. As greeting, you can use "Merhaba", "Hi", "Hocam", "Atakan hocam", "Dear Atakan hocam", etc. You do not need to be very formal, but remember that you are not sending a WhatsApp message to a buddy. #. Please observe proper grammar, punctuation and capitalization in your message. #. Adding your student ID at the very end is useful if I need to check my records to answer your question. #. Unless you are really replying to something I wrote in an email, do not use reply-to feature of your email client to send me a message. Use a fresh subject line appropriate to your message content. If I cannot track your message, I cannot answer it. #. All other things being equal, the shorter the answer you require, the faster I will respond. #. Please do not send me Microsoft Word, Excel etc. documents. I cannot open them, at least not easily, since I do not have MS Windows or MacOS. If you send me photos, make sure they are not too small, blurred etc. #. The best time to email me is weekday mornings. If you email me on weekends or outside 9am-4pm, your message has a higher chance of being read but not replied to; since once it gets marked as read, it will not necessarily draw my attention in the morning. #. If your message does not really require a response, I probably will not reply at all. However, if it does require a response, and I did not provide one in a few days, feel free to re-email me. Lecture structure ----------------- This will be a face-to-face course, supported by a number of online tools. We will use `ODTUClass `_ (for many purposes), `perusall `_ (for some reading assignments, not firm on this yet; in any case, it will not be graded), `GradeScope `_ (for exams). I expect you to attend the lectures and participate in the discussions, if you regularly fail to do so, you will receive an NA grade. .. Reading Assignments with perusall ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Every week, I will assign some reading material. This will be from your textbook, but occasionally there could be additional material. I may also assign optional reading material. You will read this material using an online platform, called perusall. You will get registered on this platform by following a link I provided on ODTUClass. By using this tool, you will have an oppurtunity to make comments, ask questions, and answer others' questions or comments. Unless the discussion gets too far off track or there is some serious error that people do not notice, I will not get involved in the discussions and I will not answer the questions. Your comments, questions and answers has to be in English. Your engagement with the reading material and the others will be graded (see below for grading percentage). I will not reveal the details, since I do not want you to optimize your behaviour with grading in mind. However there are two points: 1. You should not leave things to the last moment, there is a penalty for doing so. 2. There is more than one way to get a perfect score. The total available score adds up to more than 100%. Do what you think is useful for you, and you will be fine. Typically you will have time to comment, ask questions etc. until the day before the discussion session. Since I need time to read your comments and prepare material for discussion, I have to introduce a deadline at least a few hours before the discussion session begins. I may prepare a few quizes about the assigned reading material, to be answered on ODTUClass. The grades obtained from these will also count towards reading assignment grades. .. Discussion Sessions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Even though I will not answer your questions and comments on perusall, I *will* look at them, and prepare some questions for discussion. Every week, we will meet online and have discussions based on these questions. I will start by a short review of the topic and then pose the question. You will have a few minutes to ponder and give a response on ODTUClass, where an identical poll will be available. Then I will put you in breakout rooms (about ~5 people per room, if there are less than 10 people in the session, we will all discuss together) and discuss your answers with each other. After about 5 minutes of discussion, you will get another chance to answer the question. Then, I will discuss the question and its supposed answer, taking your responses into account. This is how it will mainly flow. I will also take some time to answer questions from perusall or discuss the answers given there. Actually, if possible, I'd prefer such pointed presentation to replace topic summaries. You are expected to attend these sessions and your participation (not the correctness of your answers!) will affect your final grade. These sessions may be recorded, but I will not make them available to anybody (including you or the future instructors for this course). Depending on demand and availability and other conditions, I may divide these discussions into two days, with 1 to 1½ hour for each session. Office Hours ~~~~~~~~~~~~ I will not be holding office hours for this class this semester. I will be available for your questions after the lecture, and alvo via email. If there is a big demand, I will consider setting up office hours. Other Guidelines ---------------- Students and faculty each have responsibility for maintaining an appropriate learning environment. Students who fail to adhere to such behavioral standards may be subject to discipline. Faculty have the professional responsibility to treat all students with understanding, dignity and respect, to guide classroom discussion and to set reasonable limits on the manner in which they and their students express opinions. Professional courtesy and sensitivity are especially important with respect to individuals and topics dealing with differences of race, language, age, culture, religion, politics, sexual orientation, gender variance, and nationalities. Class rosters are provided to the instructor with the student's legal name. I will gladly honor your request to address you by an alternate name or gender pronoun. Please advise me of this preference early in the semester so that I may make appropriate changes to my records. My preferred gender pronouns are he/him/his. If you have specific physical, psychiatric, or learning disabilities and require accommodations, please contact me as soon as possible (preferably by the second week of the semester, but it is better late than never). You can also contact our Disability Support Office to see if you can benefit from their services ``_. Homework Assignments -------------------- There will be a homework assignment about every two weeks (I expect a total of 5-6 homeworks). You will have about a week to complete each. You will not be graded on them, but they will be essential for you to learn the material. I will try to provide the solutions in some form. Using Gradescope ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ One of the email addresses you have at Gradescope needs to be *your email address in the course's website at ODTUClass*. If you use another address, even if it is an alias, you will not be able to access this course on Gradescope. You will register for this course automatically once I upload the class roster. I will wait the end of add/drop period to do that. Written exams ------------- There will be two in-class written exams. The midterm exam will be after we finish chapter 5 or 6 (I will decide on this asap), and the final exam will be at the end of the term (covering everything, but with more emphasis on later topics). .. Final Presentations and Reports ------------------------------- **I may remove this, depending on the number of people taking the course** During the term, you will pick a topic related to the course content and present this topic at the end of the term. This will be online. All students are expected to attend these presentations and grade them (I will provide rubrics well in advance). I expect these presentations to be at popular science magazine (Scientific American, Sky and Telescope etc.) level. You should make some connection to the material covered in the course while presenting your topic of choice. You will also write a brief report, summarizing what you learned. I set up a :doc:`seperate page for presentations <../presentations/Presentations>`. Please see that page for more details. Grading ------- You will be graded on one midterm and one final exam. Discussion participation will be considered in borderline cases. ======================== === Midterm exam 50% Final exam 50% Discussion participation xx ======================== === The letter grades will be assigned according to: =========== == 90 or above AA 85-89 BA 80-84 BB 75-79 CB 70-74 CC 65-69 DC 60-64 DD 50-59 FD 49 or below FF =========== == I reserve the right to lower these limits, but I will not raise them. In particular, it will be possible for everyone to get an AA. General Disclaimer ------------------ The above schedule, policies, procedures, and assignments in this course are subject to change in the event of extenuating circumstances, by mutual agreement, and/or to ensure better student learning.