ASTR 3740 Relativity & Cosmology Spring 1999: Syllabus
ASTR 3740 Spring 99 Homepage
Grading
Grading will be weighted as follows:
Item | Date | Weight |
---|
Problem Sets | | 3/6 |
Midterm | Th 11 Feb | 1/6 |
Midterm | Th 11 Mar | 1/6 |
Final | 7.30-10.30pm Sat 8 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.
Summary Sessions
There will be summary sessions in class on Tue 9 Feb and Tue 9 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 23 Feb |
The Milky Way | Th 18 Mar |
Galaxies | Th 1 Apr |
The Big Bang | Th 15 Apr |
Content
Special Relativity (3 weeks)
- Motivation, axioms
- Spacetime diagrams, 4-vectors, Lorentz transformations, time dilation, Lorentz contraction, simultaneity (per
Special Relativity)
- 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)
- The Milky Way
- Galaxies
- Expansion of the Universe, geometry, Friedmann equation, horizons
- Cosmic Microwave Background
- Dark Matter
- Inflation
There are 15 weeks of class time (30 lectures), excluding the
March Spring Break, so the above schedule leaves 3 weeks
for summary sessions, exams, going over problem sets, etc.
Texts
ASTR 3740 Homepage
Updated 19 Nov 1998