FALL 2000

This information effective for Fall 2000.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.

Physics

[PHYS-133-01] [PHYS-171]

133: Intermediate Laboratory

Meeting Time: MTWTHF 1:00 - 5:00 pm
Place: Nat Sci 2, Room 110
Instructor: Stanley Flatté, Physics

Go to: http://earthsci.ucsc.edu/~smf/phys133f00.html

171: General Relativity, Black Holes, and Cosmology

(also listed as Astronomy 171)

Instructor: Joel R. Primack, Physics
Fall 2000

Course Description

Description: Review of special relativity. Curved space-time, including metric and geodesics, will be illustrated with simple examples. The Einstein equations will be solved for cases of high symmetry. Black holes and cosmology will be discussed, including recent developments.

Tentative Syllabus:

Week:

1: Introduction

2-3: Special relativity

4-5: Inertial observers in curved spacetime, e.g. Schwarschild metric

6: Riemann tensor and Einstein field equations

7-8: Black holes and gravitational collapse

8-9: Gravitational radiation and its detection

9-10: Cosmology

Principal Textbook: General Relativity, by I. R. Kenyon (Oxford University Press, 1990).

Supplementary textbook: C. M. Will, Was Einstein Right (Basic Books, 1986).

Supplementary readings from A. Pais, Subtle Is the Lord, the science and the life of Albert Einstein (Oxford, 1982), and articles. (Alternative textbooks are still being considered.)

Requirements

There will be regular problem sets, an in-class midterm, and a take-home final exam. Students will be expected to be familiar with special relativity and partial differential equations at the level of Physics 101A, 114B, and 110B. This course will be at about the same level of difficulty as 110B, although the material will be less familiar.