| Week |
Topic |
Monday |
Wednesday |
Friday |
| 1 |
Special Relativity (website)
Special Relativity (notes)
Chapter 1, p. 10 of book
|
Jan 10
Organization
|
Jan 12
What is spacetime?
What are forces?
|
Jan 14
Postulates, Paradoxes, Simultaneity,
Spacetime diagrams
|
| 2 |
Jan 17
Martin Luther King day
|
Jan 19
Simultaneity, time dilation paradox
|
Jan 21
Lorentz transformation
|
| 3 |
Jan 24
In person classes resume
Michelson interferometer demo
Trip to αCen
Spacetime wheel
|
Jan 26
Video on Special Relativity:
The Mechanical Universe Lessons 41-44
41: The Michelson-Morley Experiment
42: The Lorentz Transformation
| Last day to drop for free |
|
Jan 28
| In class Project 1: Tachyons |
|
| 4 |
Jan 31
M87 jet
Energy-momentum
The Rules of 4D Perspective
|
Feb 2
Snow day
|
Feb 4
Pole-in-barn paradox
|
| 5 |
General Relativity,
Black Holes (notes)
General Relativity, Ch 2, p. 51 of book
Black Holes, Ch 6, p. 130 of book
Falling into a Black Hole (website)
Inside Black Holes (website)
|
Feb 7
|
Feb 9
Postulates of GR
|
Feb 11
Principle of Equivalence
|
| 6 |
Feb 14 ♥
Geodesics
Metric
|
Feb 16
Schwarzschild geometry
|
Feb 18
Journey into a Schwarzschild BH
River Model of BHs
Gullstrand and Painlevé
|
| 7 |
Feb 21
Embedding diagram (pdf)
Spacetime diagrams
|
Feb 23
The singularity is not a point
Penrose diagrams
|
Feb 25
| In class Project 2: River Model |
|
| 8 |
Feb 28
Collapse to a black hole
Schwarzschild wormhole
| 5-6pm Homework Help Session in G125 |
|
Mar 2
Charged Black Holes
Reissner-Nordström metric
Reissner-Nordström waterfall
Reissner-Nordström Penrose diagram
|
Mar 4
Rotating Black Holes
Kerr-Newman metric
Kerr Penrose diagram
|
| 9 |
Mar 7
Masks optional(!)
Mass inflation
Inside black holes
| 5-6pm Homework Help Session in G125 |
|
Mar 9
Gravitational Waves
|
Mar 11
Event Horizon Telescope
|
| 10 |
Mar 14
| Fiske: “Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity” |
|
Mar 16
|
Take-home Midterm 2 available
|
Hawking radiation (web)
Hawking radiation (notes)
|
Mar 18
No class (midterm)
|
| 11 |
|
Spring Break
|
| 12 |
Cosmology
|
Mar 28
Overview (notes 3.1)
Chapter 10, p. 224 of book
|
Mar 30
Fate of the Universe
Geometry of the Universe
Hubble diagram of Type Ia supernovae
Galaxy Clustering
|
Apr 1
Hubble sees \(z = 6.2\) star
Cosmic Microwave Background
|
| 13 |
Apr 4
FLRW metric (notes 3.16)
Chapter 10, p. 233 of book
|
Apr 6
Friedmann equations (notes 3.22)
Chapter 10, p. 238 of book
|
Apr 8
Matter, radiation, vacuum (notes 3.24)
Evolution of the Universe
|
| 14 |
Apr 11
Cosmic Microwave Background (notes 3.34)
Cosmic Microwave Background
Recombination (book p. 852)
| 5-6pm Homework Help Session in G125 |
|
Apr 13
Horizon (notes 3.40)
Horizon vs. comoving distance
Inflation (notes 3.45)
|
Apr 15
| In class Project 3: Power Spectrum of the CMB |
|
| 15 |
Apr 18
| 5-6pm Homework Help Session in G131 |
On line FCQs open
|
Apr 20
Dark Matter (notes 3.55)
Dark Matter
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (notes 3.63)
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
|
Apr 22
Time (notes 4.1, after 3.65)
|
| 16 |
Apr 25
On line FCQs due by 11.59pm
|
Apr 27
Story
|
Apr 29
Reading day (no class)
| Saturday Apr 30
| Take-home Final due 11.59pm Tue May 3 |
|
ASTR 3740 Black Holes Spring 2022: Timetable
ASTR 3740 Spring 2022 Homepage