ASTR 3740 Syllabus Fall 1998

Grading

Grading will be weighted as follows:

Item Date Weight
Problem Sets 3/6
Midterm Th 12 Feb 1/6
Midterm Th 12 Mar 1/6
Final 3.30-6.30pm Sat 9 May 2/6

Item	Date	Weight
Problem Sets		3/6
Midterm	Th 12 Feb	1/6
Midterm	Th 12 Mar	1/6
Final	3.30-6.30pm Sat 9 May	2/6

If you add that up, it comes to 7/6. To make it add to 100%, I will delete the worst 1/6 of your score. That means you can do badly on 2 problem sets, or on 1 of the midterms, or your final will count only half.

The plan is to have 6 problem sets, roughly one every two weeks. The problem sets will be mostly mathematical.

Review Sessions

There will be review sessions in class on Tue 10 Feb and Tue 10 March, the classes before the midterms.

Fiske Planetarium

CU's Fiske Planetarium has been reserved at the usual class time on the days in the following table. These shows are part of the course - exams may cover material presented in these shows.

Show Date
Black Holes and Relativity Tue 24 Feb
The Milky Way Th 19 Mar
Galaxies Th 2 Apr
The Big Bang Th 16 Apr

Show	Date
Black Holes and Relativity	Tue 24 Feb
The Milky Way	Th 19 Mar
Galaxies	Th 2 Apr
The Big Bang	Th 16 Apr

Content

Special Relativity (3 weeks)
- Motivation, axioms
- Spacetime diagrams, 4-vectors, Lorentz transformations, time dilation, Lorentz contraction, simultaneity
- Relativistic travel - what things actually look like
- Energy-momentum
General Relativity (3 weeks)
- Motivation, axioms
- General covariance, metric, geodesics, curvature, Einstein's equations
- Black Holes - theory (per Falling into a Black Hole)
- Black Holes - observation
Cosmology (6 weeks)
- Galaxies
- Expansion of the Universe, geometry, Friedmann equation, horizons
- Cosmic Microwave Background
- Dark Matter
- Structure Formation
- Inflation

There are 15 weeks of class time (30 lectures), excluding the March Spring Break, so the above schedule leaves 3 weeks for review sessions, exams, going over problem sets, etc.

Texts

Phil Maloney's (1997) ASTR 3740 lecture notes (made available with his permission).
Michael Berry (1989) ``Principles of Cosmology and Gravitation'' (Adam Hilger).

Berry does not cover special relativity adequately, so one of the following texts is recommended:

Edwin F. Taylor & John A. Wheeler (1997) ``Spacetime Physics'' 2nd ed. (W. H. Freeman).
Richard A. Mould (1996) ``Basic Relativity'' (Springer).

See Books for more.

ASTR 3740 Homepage

Updated 13 Jan 1998