1st year Reading Group

A few years ago the Kamikaze Seminars (in which the speaker to be heckled about a given topic was pulled at random from the audience) were replaced by the kinder, gentler reading group. Attended by first year students during the first semester at Edinburgh, the group is led by one or more members of staff and meets twice a week to discuss textbook readings. The aim is to give students a crash course resulting in a working knowledge of many of the most important astrophysical concepts. While the galvanizing threat of public humiliation attendant to the Kamikazes is lost in the new system, students are still expected to participate actively in these discussions. Information on the reading group can be found on John Peacock's webpage at http://www.roe.ac.uk/ jap/reading.html.