This course is a lower level presentation of general relativity than that of PHYS 530 and is not addressed to graduate students specializing in the field. In particular, there will be little emphasis on differential geometry. Rather, the basics of general relativity and its consequences will be mostly studied through the behavior of geodesics and geodesic deviation. This choice both makes the course more widely accessible to students and allows physical effects of general relativity to be studied by students who do not have the mathematical sophistication for the graduate course. The level of the course is similar to that in Hartle's notes on General Relativity (to be published) and in Rindler, Essential Relativity. This course is complimentary to, but does not replace ASTR 403; the topics of the two courses are different.

Students will be assessed on three different skills. First is their performance on homework assignments, which will require them to utilize concepts taught in class quantitatively. Both qualitative and quantitative skills will also be assessed by mid-term and final exams. Finally, students will be asked to complete a project on some aspect of general relativity. For example, students could develop a presentation on some special topic in relativity not covered in the course.

Special relativity: 4-vector notation, space-time diagrams and the light cone.

Relativistic kinematics: particle collisions, conservation of energy-momentum.

The accelerated rocket ship.

Curvilinear coordinates.

The equivalence principle.

``Derivation'' of the Einstein equations.

The metric, geodesics and the geodesic equation. The curvature tensor.

The Schwarzschild solution

Deflection of light and precession of the perihelion of Mercury

The interior of a star. Gravitational collapse

Schwarzschild and Reissner-Nordstrom black holes

Gravitational radiation.

Binary pulsars.

Hubble expansion, inflation.