Andromeda is the nearest bright spiral galaxy to the Milky Way, and a near

twin in terms of stellar and gas content. This lecture discusses

the idea of stellar populations and chemical evolution in galaxies

as determined by combining observations from within (the Milky Way) and

without (Andromeda). At the end, two other features of these galaxies,

their supermassive central black holes, is introduced, setting up a question

to be addressed in later lectures.

Recorded 2006 February 9 in 1008 Evans Laboratory on the Columbus campus

of The Ohio State University.