Course objective : The course will introduce students to special and general relativity, predictions and tests of these theories, and applications, particularly to black holes and cosmology.
Evaluation for this course: Mid-semester exam 30 %, Final exam 40%, and for BS/MS and int.Ph.D students, a project with viva 30%, while for Ph.D students, project and viva 15% and assignments 15%.
TEXTBOOKS AND ONLINE RESOURCES (all textbooks available in Indian editions):
1. Gravity, by J. Hartle
2. Gravitation: Foundations and Frontiers, by T. Padmanabhan
3. A first course in General Relativity, by B Schutz
4. Link to Sean Carroll's lecture notes available here .
5. Link to Eric Poisson's notes on advanced GR here .
6. Link to Joe Romano'notes on GR and gravitational waves here .
OFFICE HOURS: 11: 30 - 12:25 on Wednesdays. Note that we will have several extra contact hours for which attendance will be voluntary. These will be on Saturday mornings and will be for tutorials as well as advice on your project
(project discussions will be after mid-term). Tutorials and the venue will be announced in the previous Thursday class.
What would the world look like to Lance Armstrong if he bicycled with a speed close to that of light??
Follow the youtube link here to see!!
This video shows the consequences of the law of relative velocity in special relativity and is from the TV series Cosmos, by Carl Sagan.
Physics projects assigned so far (students whose projects are not assigned on this list can choose one of these if they want)
here .
Assignment 1 for Ph.D students (deadline for submission is Feb. 5 in class - no deadline extension possible)-- click here for the PDF file of the assignment. (correction: in the last question, units are chosen so that c=1.)
Assignment 2 for Ph.D students (deadline for submission is 12 March in my office - no deadline extension possible)-- click here for the PDF file of the assignment.
Extra questions relevant for the exam (including cosmology) can be found
here .