Prof. Francis Nimmo
A219 Earth & Marine Sciences Bldg.
tel. +1-831-459-1783
fnimmo@es.ucsc.edu
Classes are Tues/Thurs 2-3:45pm D258, E&MS.
An important skill for graduate students is the ability to make "quick and dirty" calculations, to see whether a problem is worth investigating properly. Such "back of the envelope" techniques are a vital part of any working scientist's intellectual toolbox. This class is designed to teach some of these techniques.
Classes will consist of a mixture of lectures, discussions and working at the blackboard. Students will be expected to have read the lecture handouts in advance of the class. Problem sets will consist of both solving, and suggesting, suitable problems. In lieu of a final exam, each student will be expected to lead at least one discussion of order-of-magnitude estimation on a topic of their choosing.
We will discuss problems relating to: Planets, Oceans and Atmospheres, Energy and the Environment, Biology, and Real Life. Typical examples: How long does it take the Moon to cool? Do beaver dams affect global warming? How dense is a neutron star? What controls how tall trees (or mountains) grow? How small is the smallest mammal? How many piano tuners in New York City? (Aficionados will recognize the last question as the archetypcal Fermi Problem).
Very few textbooks are available on this kind of material, but one good one is Back of the Envelope Physics, C. Swartz, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1993.
There are, however, several useful websites. By far the best is an excellent (if incomplete) textbook from Sanjoy Mahajan at MIT. Eugene Chiang at Berkeley has a very useful home page for a course similar to this one; Sterl Phinney at Caltech has another. The University of Maryland has a good Fermi Problem site. And here are some astrophysical examples from Ohio State.
Here is the syllabus and a justification for why you should read the lecture handouts before coming to class.
You can download the lecture handouts and problem sets (PDF format) below.
| Week 1 | Introduction Material properties Sanjoy's chapter More on binding energies | Problem Set 1 |
|---|---|---|
| Week 2 | Heat transfer and temperature | Problem Set 2 |
| Week 3 | Fluid mechanics | Problem Set 3 |
| Week 4 | Turbulence Boundary layers | |
| Week 5 | Oscillators and waves | |
| Week 6 | Convection | |
| Week 7 | Chemistry | |
| Week 8 | Thermodynamics |
Over the course of the term we will be compiling a list of useful numbers
Back to Department Home Page