Welcome to the start of second semester! Old astronomy students, please be sure to click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of your email. (Check out this week’s Cool Science link before leaving us, though!) New astronomy students, please sign up to follow this blog using the subscription field to the right.

This Week in AP Physics
This week we will begin Unit 8, which covers fluid mechanics. On Tuesday your spring force constant lab is due. Please be sure to hand in a hard copy at the start of class and upload to TurnItIn.com by Tuesday at 3:00. Please also turn in your Unit 7 Practice Problems by Friday.

This Week in Physics
We begin Unit 5 on momentum. For Tuesday, please take notes on Momentum Podcast 1 – Introduction to Momentum. We will discuss this podcast and begin assignment 1 in class on Tuesday followed by a quiz, as announced. Please take notes on Podcast 2 – Conservation of Momentum part 1, Podcast 3 – Conservation of Momentum part 2, and Podcast 4 – Conservation of Momentum Sample Problem by Wednesday. We will explore this concept, do assignment 2 together, and conduct a fun experiment involving crashing our Pascars.

This Week in Astronomy
Welcome! We will begin our exploration of the cosmos by learning how to map the stars. Please explore the Unit 1 webpage to get a feel for the resources available to you as we learn basic star mapping skills. Yes, we’ll be in the planetarium for much of the week! That means you need to bring in a dim flashlight (not LED) so that you can see your maps in the dark. Come prepared for some fun! 🙂 You do have one assignment this week, which is to read the Astronomy Course Policies and Procedures, print the last page, collect signatures upon it, and turn it in by Friday. This is a graded assignment.

Cool Science of the Week
In astronomy at the end of the first semester we had some cool discussions about the shape of the universe, namely that there is no “outside” and that it is finite, yet without an edge. Brain-numbing stuff! Here are the first two parts of a three-part series of short, fairly understandable videos explaining different theories about the shape of our mysterious home. (Part 3 isn’t released yet.)