Science
Welcome to Astronomy 162
Welcome to Astronomy 162, a lecture podcast by Professor Richard Poggi from Ohio State University, exploring stars, galaxies, and the universe. This series of 40 lectures, recorded live, is designed f...
Welcome to Astronomy 162
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Interactive Transcript
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Hello. My name is Richard Poggi, professor of astronomy at the Ohio State University,
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and it is my pleasure to welcome you to the lecture podcast for astronomy 162,
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stars, galaxies, and the universe that I taught during Winter Quarter 2006
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at the OSU main campus in Columbus, Ohio. These 40 lectures cover 9 weeks as the second quarter
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of our two quarter introductory astronomy sequence for non-science majors,
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and were recorded live in the lecture room of 10008 Evans Laboratory on the Columbus campus.
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The lectures are pitched at a mostly descriptive level with simple quantitative examples,
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not a lot of mathematics, but there's some. And each lecture is designed as part of a sequence.
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They're intended to be listened to in order, but you'll find that as many of the lectures are
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reasonably well self-contained, it can actually be listened to individually with great benefit.
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With the listener, unfortunately, is going to miss with these podcasts
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or the wonderful pictures that make astronomy such an aesthetically pleasing,
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as well as scientifically fascinating field. Maybe someone someday will provide me
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with some broadcasting hardware, and I'll actually be able to make something a bit more visually striking.
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But for now, you're going to have to basically listen to my words.
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In many ways, this is an experiment. In fact, it's a monolithist that is being attempted here
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at the Ohio State University to incorporate this new technology of podcasting as a teaching tool in our courses.
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My basic idea in starting out to this was to provide audio recordings that students can come back to
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and listen to, to relisten to portions of the lectures they may have missed,
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or things they wanted to hear a second time, because as you will see on the recordings I do talk a little fast,
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they do have benefiting class of written notes that are required off of the web,
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so it's not like they're trying to copy everything I say on paper.
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But every now and then, it's good to go back and listen to something after you've had a chance to think about it.
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Other students have told me they've used these lectures when they've missed class, for example,
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those on sports teams have actually told me they've listened to the lectures on the way back in the bus,
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and actually been able to keep up with the class they would otherwise have missed.
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And many people would tell me they're also used them for studying, going back and listening to a lecture where they felt they
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really would like to hear it a second time.
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All of those goals I think have been met this quarter, and I've heard from a great number of my students who've said how useful they've been to them.
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But what's also very much surprised me in this experiment is how many people outside the university not enrolled in this class who have listened to them,
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and many of you have sent me email from all over the world, literally.
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And I've been greatly gratified by your response to these.
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And of course to any new listeners, I hope to welcome you to these lectures.
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Please enjoy them, listen to them.
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And if you want to get a little extra out, you can visit the webpage, which is linked through the feed,
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and will allow you to actually see some of the online notes.
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I will leave these up for the next quarter or so, which will give you some of the graphics for the class.
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I can't put all of the graphics online because there are certain copyright issues that don't hold in a live lecture classroom but do on the web.
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And certainly if you have any questions, comments, or anything you wish to say, please feel free to drop me an email.
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I'm always glad to hear from you.
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This experiment has gone very well, and a lot of people have been very interested in it, and I'm curious to try it again in the future in other classes.
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So again, welcome to the lectures, and enjoy the podcast.
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Good day.