This course is officially over now!? It feels very abrupt to me, certainly, especially after all the work-load that kept me on the verge of nervous breakdown for the past one week or two, right up until today... I guess I now know a thing or two about teaching a large course like this!!
Thanks to all of you who participated in all the discussions. Many of those discussions were great!
It was a great pleasure to be your instructor for this course! Sorry to have made many of you feel "uncomfortable" in exams and such. Although I did not really mean to do that, I realize that it is something necessary to some extent.
As for the final outcome, that letter grade, I believe you can check it out now, since I posted all of them today.
Also, the solutions to the final exam are uploaded in the sols+ folder.
I have many thoughts about this course. Many things were enjoyable and some weren't. I am sure most of those thoughts will be good for me in the future. If you have some helpful thoughts to share with me, come knock on my office door in the new year.
I hope all of you have happy holiday breaks and come back fresh for more constructive struggles!
In the mean time, when you look up the sky with your loved one(s) at day or night during this holiday season, chew on this question, if you don't have any other thing to think about (or even if!). We had this thing about the circular orbit of a space shuttle. Without doing anything else than just applying very quick forward thrusts it is possible to put this shuttle in another circular orbit with a larger radius. The surprise is that the speed of the shuttle is smaller in the larger circular orbit! Just one thrust will not do, but two exactly measured, very quick, thrusts will do! It may sound a little absurd. How is it possible that each time the thrust is applied the speed increases, but, in the end, the final speed is less than the initial speed? Actually, this is exactly what happens! [Partial answer: the intermediate orbit is not a circle!]
Happy holidays!
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