Winter 2007 Schedule
- Week 1. (January 4)
Introduction/Organization.
- Week 2. (January 9, 11)
Review of Special Relativity and Newtonian Gravity.
Hartle Chap. 1-5.
- Week 3. (January 16, 18)
Gravity from Geometry of Curved Spacetime.
Hartle Chap. 6-7.
- Week 4. (January 23, 25)
Geodesics and Local Inertial Frames.
Hartle Chap. 8.
- Week 5. (January 30, February 1)
The Schwarzschild Geometry.
Hartle Chap. 9.
- Week 6. (February 6, 8)
Review (Feb 6) and Midterm Exam (Feb 8, in class).
- Week 7. (February 13, 15)
Gravitational Collapse and Black Holes.
Hartle Chap. 12.
- Week 8. (February 20, 22)
Rotation, Geodetic Precession, Lense-Thirring Precession, the Kerr
Geometry.
Hartle Chap. 14-15.
- Week 9. (February 27, March 1)
Rotating Black Holes, the Penrose Process, Hawking Radiation and
Black Hole Thermodynamics.
Hartle Chap. 13, Chap. 15.
- Week 10. (March 6, 8)
Black Hole Interiors and Conformal Diagrams (March 6) and Review
(March 8).
- Final Exam: Thursday, March 15th, 3-5 PM.
Spring 2007 Schedule
- Week 1. (March 27)
Overview of second quarter.
- Week 2. (April 2, 4)
Introduction to Big Bang Cosmology.
Hartle Chap. 17-19.
- Week 3. (April 9, 11)
Introduction to Inflation and Dark Energy.
Time Machines (Guest Lecture by Alan Guth, April 11).
- Week 4. (April 16, 18)
Vectors, Dual Vectors, and Tensors.
Hartle Chap. 20.
- Week 5. (April 23, 25)
Covariant Derivatives and Geodesic Deviation.
Hartle Chap. 20-21.
- Week 6. (April 30, May 2)
Riemann Curvature and the Field Equation in Vacuum.
Hartle Chap. 21.
- Week 7. (May 7, 9)
Energy-Momentum Tensors and the Einstein Field Equation.
Hartle Chap. 22.
- Week 8. (May 14, 16)
Linearized Gravity (Hartle Sec. 21.5).
Gravitational Radiation.
Hartle Chap. 23.
- Week 9. (May 21, 23)
Relativistic Fluids and Relativistic Stars.
Hartle Chap. 24.
- Take-Home Final Exam: due June 8.
