8.224 | Spring 2003 | Undergraduate

Exploring Black Holes: General Relativity & Astrophysics

Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 1 session / week, 1.5 hours / session 
Recitations: 1 session / week, 1.5 hours / session

Prerequisites

8.033 Relativity, or 8.20 Introduction to Special Relativity.

Format

Weekly meetings include an evening seminar and recitation. The last third of the semester is reserved for collaborative research projects on topics such as the Global Positioning System, solar system tests of relativity, descending into a black hole, gravitational lensing, gravitational waves, Gravity Probe B, and more advanced models of the Cosmos.

Texts

The two texts for this class are:

Taylor, Edwin F., and John Archibald Wheeler.Exploring Black Holes: Introduction to General Relativity. Addison Wesley Longman, 2000, ISBN 9780201384239. Called “EBH” in all assignments. NOTE: You should have the fifth printing; the first number in the very bottom line of the Acknowledgments page (behind the title page) should be a 5.

Thorne, Kip. Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy. W. W. Norton, 1995, ISBN 9780393312768. Called “Thorne” in all assignments.

Homework

There is a weekly homework assignment due at the end of each week.

Grade Policy

Activities Percentages
Homework 25%
Mid-term examination 30%
Final project 35%
Meeting intermediate deadlines for projects 5%
Recitation quiz grades, participation in recitation and online discussions 5%

Course Info

Departments
As Taught In
Spring 2003
Learning Resource Types
Lecture Videos
Exams
Problem Sets