Basic Astrophysics
I am making overviews for certain areas that I know. These overviews intend to make my own students quickly pick up some basic knowledge that they will hopefully not so easily forget. And if they forget, they can always come back to check. In case you have any suggestion about the material, you are very welcome to contact me too.
These overviews are mostly staying at a qualitative level, i.e., even citizens who have no discipline in science should be able to follow a good part of them. I am providing some links to the deeper material that one can access for free. I may find other places to host the deeper discussion too.
Presently, these overviews are in English. This is because not all of my students can read Chinese. In case you feel interested in mirroring these pages and translating them into Chinese, please feel free to contact me. I made do the translation myself after using these materials in my own teaching for some years. I can help you if there is anything that is not so clear to you (this may happen since I am not a native English speaker).
If you would like to use these materials in your teaching, it would be very much appreciated if you would drop me a message. This also applies when you are postdoc or a senior student and when you try to based on these materials to explain some concepts to your junior colleagues. I would take is as an encouragement. And if you find anything wrong, or if you have any idea about how to improve the explanation, please do let me know.
The references in these pages are biased to the publications of my group or my collaborators. My students need to read our papers to continue our research. I also refer to some reviews that I think are important to know. Most of my students major in physics (in Taiwan, there is no undergraduate level astronomy program; the graduate schools are also yet very limited in this area). The Master’s programs are short (2-years, typically), and my students need to spend at least a full year taking ultra difficult physics course that may not be useful to them (e.g., Jackson electrodynamics). They have one year one to do research, preparing for the application of Ph.D. programmes (including English tests such as GRE, or the written physics/mathematics exams for the local programmes), and write up the thesis. They cannot afford to be introduced with too many materials to read otherwise it will look like I am torturing them. My Ph.D. students are required to read as much as they can. They are not supposed to only read the references introduced in my webpages. If you meet any of my Ph.D. student, and if you feel that they are only familiar with our own works, please let me know. I will improve my education. If you are interested in using this material to educate your own Master’s or Ph.D. students, you are welcome to introduce some other references to your students, i.e., those you think are better for them.