PHYS-4240: General Relativity

ASTR-4240: Gravitation & Cosmology

 

General Information

 

Instructor

Professor Wayne G. Roberge    (roberw at rpi dot edu)

Science Center Room 1C36

276-6454

Office Hours

Tues. & Wed. 2:00-3:00 or by appointment

TA

Jennifer Carter   (cartej6 at rpi dot edu)

TA Office Hours

TBA

Class Meetings

Tues & Fri, 12:00-1:50 in Ricketts 212          NOTE THE ROOM CHANGE!

Attendance

Attendance is not required but in-class activities count toward the final grade.

Learning

Assessment

Problem sets (40%), 2 exams (40%) and in-class activities (20%).

Learning

Outcomes

A student who successfully completes this course will be able to:

·   Solve problems in Special and General Relativity.

·   Express physical statements in covariant form.

·   Use a metric tensor to relate coordinates to observables.

·   Identify event horizons and sufaces of infinite redshift.

·   Describe the FRW models of the Universe.

·   Describe models with nonzero cosmological constant.

Text

Gravitation and Spacetime, 2nd Edition, by H. Ohanian and R. Ruffini (required). Be sure to check the online errata list frequently.

Academic Honesty

Students are responsible for upholding the rules of academic honesty as spelled out in the Rensselaer Handbook. Students are encouraged to collaborate on homework but must write up solutions independently. Students may not copy or paraphrase homework solutions obtained from the internet, textbooks, or any other sources. A single instance of cheating will result in a failing grade for the course.

 

Back to course homepage<!--#exec cmd="/var/www/cgi-bin/wrap /nicolle" -->

Last modified 1/4/11.