Astrophysics 615 Homework Assignments

We will cover Chapters 1-14 in the lecture notes during the semester. You are expected to turn in the following homework assignments for those chapters. These will not be graded but will be be checked for completion (this counts 20% of your grade), and solution sheets will be provided. You may be docked 5% per day for each day that an assignment is late (this is meant to keep you from getting behind; if there are reasons why you need to be late with an assignment, check with me and we can probably reach an arrangement).

Homework will generally be due during the class period one week after the class period when the chapter is completed in lecture, except very near the end of the semester where the due date will be given explicitly in class for the last assignments. For example, if we complete Chapter 3 on a Tuesday, the assigned exercises for Chapter 3 will be due during class the following Tuesday. Where solutions are provided, you are expected to do the homework before consulting the solutions if you are late turning in homework. You may work together on the homework assignments as long as each person is doing all the problems (i.e., it is not permissible for a team to divide up the work and then copy from each other). You are encouraged to use tools like Maple, Mathematica, MatLab, or programming languages in solving problems and graphing solutions.

In the first two chapters I am requiring that a number of exercises be done because these are introductory chapters and I want to be sure everyone is on the same page with respect to this introductory material (because these are introductory chapters, most of the exercises in Chapters 1-2 are not too difficult). In subsequent chapters only selected exercises are required. You are, of course, encouraged to do as many exercises as possible beyond the required minimal assignment.

 Note that this is a web page and thus may be updated during the semester. You should check it regularly to be certain that assignments have not changed.