Astronomy Extra Credit

AST Extra Credit

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For extra credit, I'll grant a certain number (up to 5, but more likely around 3) of percentage points to one's total grade for the course for reading one of the following list of books [and presenting...see below] (see me if you'd like to get some other appropriate book included on this list): Links provided to Amazon's site for convenience only.

Lisa Randall's Warped Passages
Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe
Kip Thorne's Black Holes & Time Warps
Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything
Simon Singh's The Big Bang
Steve Squyres' Roving Mars
Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe (See a review of this book by a famous physicist)
Lawrence Krauss' The Physics of Star Trek
Out of the Shadows: Contributions of Twentieth-Century Women to Physics
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character)
The Grand Contraption: The World as Myth, Number, and Chance by David Park
Discarded Science: Ideas That Seemed Good at the Time by John Grant
Longitude by Dava Sobel

and giving a presentation to the class concerning its content. Given that multiple people may choose the same book, all those in the class reading the same book should coordinate (you can do a group project if you want, else just present different aspects).
~~You must schedule your presentation with me by the date of the second test so that I know who is doing these extra credit projects.~~ You must present in class on April 24, 2007. The purpose of the presentation is:

Convince the class you read the book.
Convince the class to read the book.
Wow us with cool stuff.

Last updated March 26, 2007.

Steve Liebling (home)