ASTR 3740 Spring 2019 Syllabus

ASTR 3740 Spring 2019 Homepage

ASTR 3740 Relativity & Cosmology Spring 2019: Syllabus

Content

This is an upper division course intended to introduce science students to special and general relativity, to black holes, and to cosmology. This course is an elective for the APS major and APS minor.

We will spend 4 weeks on Special Relativity, 6 weeks on General Relativity and Black Holes, and 5 weeks on Cosmology. For more details, see the Timetable.

The course will combine visualization, physical understanding, and mathematics. I will assume that you are comfortable with matrices (necessary for understanding Lorentz transformations) and with calculus (necessary for understanding metrics). The mathematics will not be fearsome (we will not be doing tensors or anything like that), but I will assume that you are the kind of person for whom mathematics helps rather than hinders understanding. If you do not fall into this category, you should consider taking one of the lower division courses ASTR 2030 Black Holes or ASTR 2010 Modern Cosmology, both of which are being taught this semester, Spring 2019.

Exams

There will be two midterms and one final, at the dates and times given in the Timetable.

The exams will cover material discussed in class, and will consist largely of short answer or short essay questions. The two midterms will cover material covered in the previous 4 and 6 weeks respsectively. The final will cover all material covered cumulatively during the semester, with an emphasis on material covered since the Spring Break.

There will be summary sessions prior to each exam.

In class group Projects

There will be three in class group Projects, as scheduled on the Timetable.

The projects are intended to engender thought and discussion, and to exercise your powers of logic. They are not designed to be chug-and-plug exercises.

Each project will take place during a full class period. For the project, you will assemble into groups of 3 or 4. You should immediately assign one of your group to be the “Scribe”. The group should discuss and solve the project together.

It is the Scribe's responsibility to write up the results obtained by the group, and to submit them at the end of class. I will accept only one submission from each group. The write-up must include the name of the Scribe, and the names of all the other members of the group.

To simplify the logistics, the groups will be informal, probably consisting of your nearest neighbors. You do not have to stay in the same group, and indeed I encourage you to rotate into other groups.

If possible, you should rotate the role of Scribe. Make a goal that you personally should be Scribe for at least one group project during the semester.

Only the best 2 of 3 projects will count to your project grade. This is so that you can be out of town or otherwise unavailable for any one project without penalty. There are no project make-ups, since the whole idea of projects is to work in teams.

Problem sets

There will be several (seven are planned) problem sets, which will be handed out in class, and which will also be downloadable from Problems. You are welcome, indeed encouraged, to collaborate with each other on problem sets, but what you submit for grade must be your own work.

There will be a tendency for problem sets to be more mathematical than exams or group projects.

Clickers

We will be using clickers, and clicker points will contribute to your grade. You must purchase a clicker at the CU Bookstore, and then register your clicker through myCUinfo as described at CUClickers registration, so that answers from your clicker can be credited to you.

Clicker questions will generally be of two kinds:

Questions at the beginning of class on the topic of the previous class, or on the assigned reading;
Concept questions arising in class.

You win clicker points as follows:

Points	Assessment
0	No answer
1	Wrong answer
2	Right answer

Every person gets 4 free clicker days, meaning that we will omit the worst scoring 4 days from your clicker score. These free clicker days include all eventualities, including days when your clicker fails to work, days when you forgot your clicker, days when you have a personal or family emergency, days when you have to be elsewhere to represent your team or club or University, and days when you go skiing.

It is strictly forbidden to operate someone else's clicker for them. If you are discovered doing this, then both you and the person whose clicker you operated will receive an F. If you see a classmate operating two or more clickers, please bring it immediately to my attention.

Grading

Grading will be weighted as follows:

Item	Date	Weight
Midterm	Fri 8 Feb	1/8
Midterm	Wed 20 Mar	1/8
Final	Tue 7 4:30-7pm	2/8
Clickers		1/8
Projects		1/8
Problem Sets		3/8

If you add that up, it comes to 9/8. To make it add to 100%, I will delete the worst 1/8 of your score. That means you can do badly on two problem sets, or on the projects, or on one of the midterms, or your final will count only half.

Students with Disabilities

The law requires us to make reasonable accommodations to students with learning or physical disabilities. If you need such accommodations, then you should tell me about them in a timely manner. Your first step is to contact Disability Services, who will assess your needs and let me know what accommodations I should provide.

If you have a temporary medical condition or injury, see Temporary Injuries guidelines under the Quick Links at the Disability Services website and discuss your needs with me.

Policies

Please consider the CU required syllabus statements as part of this syllabus.

Common Courtesy

I expect you:

To give the class your full attention;

You may expect me:

To finish lectures on time.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

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Updated 2018 Feb 4