"From Stargazers to Starships" --  Site Map

      by David P. Stern

•       Spanish translation of "Stargazers" by J. M. Mendez and Horacio Chavez
•       French translation of "Stargazers" by Dr. Guy Batteur
•       Italian translation of "Stargazers" by Dr. Giuliano Pinto
•       A set of lesson plans for teachers.
•       An overview of this site and two sister sites.

1. Stargazers and Skywatchers
 1a.    The Celestial Sphere
 1b.    Finding the Pole Star
2. The Path of the Sun, the Ecliptic
 2a.    Building a Sundial
3. Seasons of the Year
 3a. The Angle of the Sun's Rays
4.   The Moon: the Distant View
 4a.    The Moon: A Closer Look
 4b.   Optional:  Libration of the Moon
5. Latitude and Longitude
 5a.   Navigation
 5b.   The Cross-Staff
 5c.    Coordinates
6. The Calendar
 6a.    The Jewish Calendar   (optional)
7. Precession
8. The Round Earth and Christopher Columbus
 8a.     Distance to the Horizon
 8b.     Parallax
 8c.     How Distant is the Moon?--1
 8d.     How Distant is the Moon?--2
    The central role of the Sun
 9a.    Aristarchus: Is Earth Revolving around the Sun?
 9b.    The Earth's Shadow
 9c.    Copernicus, Galileo, and the Discovery of the Solar System
"Kepler's 3 Laws of Planetary Motion," a one-hour overview lecture to teachers presented 23 March 2005.
    Guide to the sections on Kepler's Laws which follow below.

10. Kepler and his Laws
 10a.   The Scale of the Solar System
11. Graphs and Ellipses
 11a.    Ellipses and Kepler's First Law
12. Kepler's Second Law
 12a.   More on Kepler's Second Law
 12b.   How Orbital Motion is Calculated

Optional: The 2004 Transit of Venus
 12c.     Introduction to the calculation
 12d.     The displacement D of the track of Venus
 12e.     Deriving the Astronomical Unit

Newtonian mechanics

13. The Way Things Fall
14. Vectors
15. Energy

16. Newton and his Laws
17. Mass
 17a.    Mass Measurements aboard Space Station Skylab
 17b.    Comparing Masses without the Use of Gravity
18. Newton's Second Law
 18a.     Newton's Third Law
 18b.    Momentum
 18c.    Work
 18d.    Work against an Electric Force: The Van de Graaff Generator

19. Motion in a Circle
20. Newton's theory of "Universal Gravitation"
21. Kepler's Third Law
 21a.    Applying Kepler's Third Law

Optional: Spaceflight to Mars

 21b.     Flight to Mars: How Long? Along what Path?
 21c.     Flight to Mars: Calculations
 21d.     Flight to Mars: the Return Trip

22. Frames of Reference: The Basics
 22a     The Aberration of Starlight
 22b     The Theory of Relativity
 22c     Airplane Flight
 22d     Airplane Flight: How high? How fast? (optional)
23. Accelerated Frames of Reference: Inertial Forces
 23a     Frames of Reference: The Centrifugal Force
 23b     Loop-the-Loop (optional)
24a. The Rotating Earth
24b. Rotating Frames of Reference in Space and on Earth

The Sun and related Physics

                The Sun--Introduction

          How the Sun produces weather and climate
S-1.     Sunlight and the Earth
    S-1A.     Weather and the Atmosphere
    S-1B.     Global Climate, Global Wind flow


S-2.     Our View of the Sun
S-3.     The Magnetic Sun
    S-3A.     Interplanetary Magnetic Field Lines
S-4.     The Many Colors of Sunlight
  S-4A.     Experimenting with Colors
S-5.     Waves and Photons

Optional series of sections on Quantum Phenomena:

Q-1.     Quantum Physics
Q-2.     The Atomic Structure of Matter
Q-3.     Atomic Energy Levels
Q-4.     Planck's Constant: Radiation from Hot Objects
Q-5.     The Atomic Nucleus and Bohr's Early Model of the Atom
Q-6.     Expansion of the Bohr Model
Q-7.     Wave Mechanics
Q-8.     Quantum Tunneling


S-6.     Seeing the Sun in a New Light
S-7.     The Energy of the Sun

Peripheral Subjects related to section S-7 above:


LS-7A     The Discovery of Atoms and Nuclei
                   (A very quick overview of the relevant history.)
S-7A     The Black Hole at the Center of our Galaxy
S-8.     Nuclear Power
S-9.     Nuclear Weapons

Spaceflight and Spacecraft

25. The Principle of the Rocket
26. Robert Goddard and his Rockets
27. The Evolution of the Rocket
28. Spaceflight
29. Spacecraft
 29a.  Satellites observing the Sun, solar system and the universe
 29b.   Satellites observing Earth from above
 29c.   Satellites which observe the local space environment
 29d.   Satellites for commercial benefits
 29e.   Missions to planets and distant space
30. Far-out Pathways to Space: Great Guns?
 30a.    Project HARP and the Martlet
31. Far-out Pathways to Space: Nuclear Power
32. Far-out pathways to Space: Solar Sails
 32a.    Early Warning of Interplanetary Disturbances
33. Ion Rockets
34. Orbits in Space
 34a.    The Distance to the L1 Point
 34b.    The L4 and L5 Lagrangian Points
 34c.    The L4 and L5 Points--Another Derivation
35. Starships
 35a.    Planetary Swing-by and the Pelton Turbine

            Afterword:   "Do Frogs Exist there Too ?"

A Math Refresher

Home page

Elements of algebra

(M-1) Basic ideas
(M-1A) Algebra Proficiency Drill
(M-2) How it all started
(M-3) Formulas
(M-4) Identities
(M-5) Deriving Approximate Results

(M-6) The Theorem of Pythagoras

Elements of trigonometry

(M-7) What is it good for?
(M-8) How to tell sines from cosines
(M-9) Deriving sines and cosines
(M-10) Going past 90 degrees
(M-11) Deriving sin(α+β), cos(α+β).
(M-11A) Trigonometry Proficiency Drill
(M-12) The Tangent

Helpful Material

Questions and Answers   --   Listed by subject     (and oh, do we get questions!)
Questions and Answers   --   Listed in the order they were received.
Hints to users.
A Glossary of Terms     (Cross-linked, keyed to the text)
Annotated Timeline   (Chronology with links and added dates from history).

'Stargazers' in the Classroom  
"Stargazers" and National Science Education Standards
Inventory of concepts, calculations and stories, by section.
A list of problems related to the material.
Additional Problems
"Using Space to Teach Physics"    (draft of article in The Physics Teacher, Feb.'99) "Kepler's 3 Laws of Planetary Motion," a one-hour overview lecture to teachers presented 23 March 2005.
Afterthoughts on what this site has become.

---

Author and Curator:   Dr. David P. Stern
     Greenbelt, Maryland                                 Mail to Dr.Stern:   stargaze("at" symbol)phy6.org .



Last updated: 3.21.2006