ASTR 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Robert Wadlow, Olympus Mons, Electromagnetism
14 Apr 2016
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In this unit, we"ll consider the role played by the size of an object. As you know, many things in astronomy are very large: planets and stars, for example. We"ll also consider why gravity, which is very a weak force, is dominant and introduce the concept of self-gravity. Finally, we"ll discuss energy and heat and introduce a powerful conservation law. This will lead us to an understanding of how the stars themselves formed. In the natural world, big things don"t always look like small things. For example, elephants are very different in shape than ants. Ants have long spindly legs, elephants have very thick legs. The reason for this was first appreciated by galileo, and here is a diagram from one of his books that shows this. Big animals, in general, have very thick bones and thick legs to hold up their weight. The reason has to do with the strength of materials and how much weight they can support.
