General Relativity

Full course description

General Relativity is the best theory of gravity that we have. It refines and supersedes the classical Newtonian theory of Universal Gravitation, and leads to many interesting and exotic predictions about the Universe and objects within it. In this course, we will build up the General Theory of Relativity, the relation between curved spacetimes and matter and energy, study the mathematics needed to do the necessary calculations, and apply it to some interesting cases. Among those are Schwarzschild black holes, Friedmann-Robertson-Walker Universes, and gravitational waves.

Course objectives

To understand the theory of Special Relativity as a tensor theory;
To reformulate gravity as curvature of spacetime;
To understand tensor algebra as a mathematical apparatus;
To be able to calculate spacetime curvature in the presence of mass and energy;
To be able to calculate motion in curved spacetime;
To understand black holes, cosmology, and gravitational waves as specific examples of thetheory learned.

Prerequisites

PHY2001
PHY3002

Co-requisites

None

General Relativity