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Dibs Fall 2026

ASTR 4

Black Holes and Cosmic Catastrophes

Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. No mathematical preparation beyond that necessary for admission to UCLA in freshman standing. Course for general UCLA students, normally not intending to major in physical sciences. Introduction to exotic cosmic phenomena known as black holes, and their bizarre effects on fabric of space and time. Some black holes form in violent events that terminate lives of stars, while formation of much more massive black holes at centers of galaxies is still mysterious. Covers cosmic catastrophes including stellar explosions and mergers, supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, and gravitational waves. Discussion of depiction of black holes in popular culture. P/NP or letter grading.

Course statistics

Predicted GPA
3.19
n = 243 · 5 terms · ± 0.034
A range
48%
of letter grades
Taken P/NP
15%
88% of those passed
D / F / W
6.2%
incl. withdrawals

Sections in Fall 2026

Sections offered, with live enrollment and predicted GPA
Section Status Enrolled Seat risk Meets Instructor Predicted GPA
Lec 1 Closed
79 of 79
100% full
 fills MWF 1:00pm-1:50pm Larkin, J.E.
3.38n=113 · this instructor

Enrollment history

Final enrollment per term, averaged across that term's sections. Four years deep, summer excluded. Per-section live curves are on each section page.

  • 6522S
  • 3222F
  • 4423F
  • 6724F
  • 8325S
Enrolment by term: 22S 65, 22F 32, 23F 44, 24F 67, 25S 83
Peak 83 Most recent 83 in 25S 5 terms on record

Grade distribution

  • A+ 26 · 8.8%
  • A 51 · 17.3%
  • A- 39 · 13.3%
  • B+ 30 · 10.2%
  • B 33 · 11.2%
  • B- 16 · 5.4%
  • C+ 14 · 4.8%
  • C 11 · 3.7%
  • C- 8 · 2.7%
  • D+ 5 · 1.7%
  • D 3 · 1.0%
  • D- 3 · 1.0%
  • F 4 · 1.4%
  • P 38 · 12.9%
  • NP 5 · 1.7%
  • S 1 · 0.3%
  • I 7 · 2.4%

Grey bars are non-letter outcomes — P/NP, S/U, incompletes. They are excluded from the GPA entirely rather than scored, because counting a P as a 4.0 would be a fabrication.

By instructor

Instructor Predicted Raw n Terms A range
LARKIN, JAMES E 3.38 3.40 113 2 61%
MALKAN, MATTHEW ARNOLD 2.85 2.79 66 2 36%
SHAPLEY, ALICE EVE 3.19 3.20 64 1 36%

“Predicted” is shrunk toward the course average, which is itself shrunk toward the department — so an instructor with a handful of students sits near the course mean rather than topping the list.

By term