Calendar and Assigments:
| Week of |
Topic | Chapter in Hartle | Problem sets & handouts |
| Tuesday, Jan 17 |
Applications of general relativity Special relativity: gedankenexperiments & paradoxes, spacetime diagrams |
Chapter 1 Chapter 4 |
PS 1 |
| Jan 24 |
Relativistic mechanics, 4-vectors, hyperbolic geometry | Chapter 5 | PS 2,
Article Rec 1, Calc of Variations |
| Jan 31 |
Calculus of variations, review of analytical mechanics Visual appearance of rapidly moving objects |
Chapter 3 Chapter 6 |
PS 3 |
| Feb 7 |
Newtonian gravity, action principle General relativity: equivalence principle, clocks |
Chapter 2 Chapter 6 |
PS 4 |
| Feb 14 |
Rindler space, static weak field metric, Penrose diagrams, gravitational redshift, Hafele and Keating experiment | Review PS 1 |
|
| Feb 21 |
Euclidean and Lorentzian metrics, lightcones, embeddings, Penrose diagrams; applications to 3-sphere, flat space, hyperbolic space (Euclidean), Minkowski space, FRW universe | PS 5 | |
| Feb 28 |
De Sitter space; horizons, Schwarzschild metric (Lorentzian) | Chapter 7 | PS 6 |
| Mar 6 |
SPRING BREAK |
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| Mar 13 |
de Sitter space (uniformly accelerated universe), more calculus of variations, the geodesic equation, Christoffel symbols, orbit equations, applications to motion in various spaces and spacetimes | Chapter 8 | PS 7 |
| Mar 20 |
Geodesics in Schwarzschild spacetime of a black hole, the effective radial problem for massive particles, precession of planetary orbits | Chapter 9 | PS 8 schorbits.nb |
| Mar 27 |
The effective radial problem for massless particles, bending of light, the postnewtonian approximation | Review PS 2 |
|
| Apr 3 |
Causal structure of black holes, Eddington-Finkelstein and Kruskal-Szekeres coordinates, gravitational collapse, Reisner-Nordstrom blackholes | Chapter 12 | PS 9 |
| Apr 10 |
Tensors, covariant derivatives, parallel transport | Chapter 20 | PS 10 |
| Apr 17 |
Geodesic deviation | Chapter 21 | Final Review PS |
| Apr 24 |
Einstein Equations, black hole thermodynamics, Hawking radiation | Chapter 22 & Supplementary |