Hennings 302 is available from 10am to 11am on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, so we can change the time of the course, if the new time works for everyone.

The problems through Week 4 are more or less set. Please read them and give me some feedback.

I have effectively reserved Hennings 302 from 10am to 11am MWF, so starting on Monday, 12 January we will meet at the later time. I will also announce this in class on Friday. This Friday (9 January), class will be from 9am-10am.

Office hours will be from 11am-12 noon on Mondays and Fridays. I supervise a lab from 11am-2pm in Hebb 22 on Wednesdays, and you are welcome to see me there but the lab students will have priority.

We have settled on a time finally. We will meet Mondays 12-2pm in Hebb 13 and Fridays from 1-2pm in Hebb 12. Office hours will be from 11am-12 noon on Mondays and 12 noon to 1pm on Fridays. Thanks.

I have managed to schedule my trip, the week of February 10 to leave on Tuesday morning, so there will be class on Tuesday. I would like the topic to be something that you, the class, suggest.

People should also start thinking about the presentations. Some ideas that have come up are

• Write a program to simulate binary star evolution.
• Explore the structure of neutron stars by integrating the OV equations for various types of materials.
• Write a program to simulate the spin-down of a neutron star, including the evolution of the magnetic field and moment of inertia of the star.
• Look at the pulsar catalog and try to figure out the demographics of pulsars. Do their magnetic fields change as they age? Do they spin down according to the dipole formula?
• Calculate the equation of state and structure of quark stars.
• Contrast accreting neutron stars, white dwarfs and black holes. How do their accretion disks differ? How do their surfaces differ?
• Polarization of gamma-ray burst afterglows