Presentations
Here, I list a list of suggested topics. You can start emailing me your choice of partner (another student) and topic
----- Monday Oct. 28th (8am to 11:59pm), first-come-first-served -------
after which I will assign you a partner + topic if you haven't decided. If you want to present a topic different from these, you have to get my approval before the same deadline The mid-term grades will be posted on Oct. 25th, and the last drop date is Nov. 4th. So if you drop the course, please be kind and inform your partner in-time.
Presentation Requirements:
1) Two people in the group may have their work partitioned as: one person does the presentation and the other answers questions. The total time allotted to each group is 6 minutes, out of which ~ 4 minutes are for talk and ~ 2 minutes are for questions/discussions. Penalty (not award) incurs if your talk runs overtime.
2) Be physical in your discussion -- this is a presentation by a science major so I don't expect to see only descriptive words. Ask whys and hows, and answer them by synthesizing the information you've found.
3) You will fare better if you can produce an estimate -- an estimate that discloses the essence of the phenomenon and gives your audience a good quantitative understanding.
4) I would discourage using slides --- you've got only a short time and have to be physical in your discussion. However, if you insist, you can email it to me at least a day ahead and I can project it using my laptop.
5)The audience are encouraged/required to ask questions. You can get up to 2 bonus marks (above the full 5 marks for presentation) if you ask particularly interesting questions. In the past, this has been the most fun part and both audiences/speakers learn from it.
Suggested Presentation Topics
Nov. 8
What will happen when the Sun dies? Sydney Maddock + Ayaan Asif
Can the entire humanity live on solar power? Maguire Maloney + Ethan Kwan
What if the Sun does not rotate? Brian Ray Sean Huang + Zukang Yang
chemical make-up of the Sun: Isabelle Laing + Beskers
the most massive stars: Aarnav Mehra + Herman Zhou
What determines lifetime of a star? : Isabella Rivera + Daryl ?
brown dwarfs: Yiwei Jiang + Xiaohan Jing
Sun spots and solar cycle: Evelyn Hughes + Amy Ye
What is a Pop III star? Jason Wang + Joly Ma
How do we know the Sun is doing fusion inside?
How old is the Sun/Solar system and how do we know?
Nov. 15
blackholes: Annalisa Teixeira + Sargun Jassal.
pulsars; Alyssa Montejo + Divya Hurzook.
white dwarfs: Mayesha Rahaman + Hetvi Soni
planetary cores and interiors; Louis Cyr + Will Harding
What is the atmosphere composition of the Earth? Brooklyn Zhou + Jiatengyi Ruan
green-house effect on Venus: Teju Alex Chang + Rose Kinoshita
a recent mission to Mars; Sowon Choi + Arav Sri Agarwal
mission to the Moon: Dylan Vlaskamp + Sean Tooze
Martian Atmosphere: Asa Mathurin + Brendan Tang
Nov. 22
the Cassini mission results; Jara Chisholm + Elias Quastel
the Juno mission: Vishnu Chandrasekharan + Andy Morarescu
the Giant Red Spot of Jupiter: Luna Grammer + Martha Yousif
Saturn’s rings; Phoebe Li + Jingxi Zhang
a Jovian moon (Europa): Hayd'n Dawson + Randeep Singh Saini
cratering; Kaitlyn Dhirani + Kushali Vyas
a recent mission to a comet; Ericka O'Neill + Cissy Kuang
a Saturnian Moon (Titan): Deepthi Claude + Yuxin Ma
Nov. 29
when is the next big asteroid impact? Alexandros Pratsos + Hussein David
planetary tectonics; Nicole Jacquette + Mohamed Farahat
earthquakes; Huanyu Shen + Yulong Bao
tornados and cyclones; Marlis Senecal + Amelie Zhang
uniqueness of Earth; Defne Eris + Michelle Park
the closest exoplanet: Thato Sotashe + Alexandra Worms
atmospheres of extra-solar planets: Ana Pago + Farzin Farzin
Venus’ loss of atmospheres: Gwen Torriani + Lucas Garcia Vidal
Earth’s magnetic field; Max Chen + Ron Reynolds
Dec. 2nd
What is the faint young sun paradox? Aniketh Salil + Fiza Kabeer
Why are more massive stars brighter?: Zoe Henry + Mehmet Bükücü
star formation and giant molecular cloud: Adam Cruz + Dorna Asnaashari
gravitational slingshot: Le Qin + Yilun Feng
Can wind power on Earth support human civilization? Serdar Sun+Tristan Fattedad
habitable zone around stars: Sara Aminaee + Amanda Whiting
terra-forming Mars; Maia Hagen-Rattan + Matteo Moretti
asteroid impacts: Garv Choudhry + Rosayla Coulthard