PH 544 General Theory of Relativity (Spring 2016-17)

Instructor name: Prof. P Ramadevi

Course Type: Honours / Elective

Pre-requisites: Special Theory Of Relativity

Course Content: Tensor Analysis, Riemannian geometry, Curvature, Christoffel Symbol, Riemann, Ricci, and Einstein Tensor. Energy-Momentum Tensor, Lagrange formulation to arrive at the geodesic equations. Peep into field theory for arriving at the energy-momentum tensor and deriving the Lorentz force from it.

Other Topics that have been covered: Precession of Mercury, Bending of light, Radar Signalling, and Gravitational Red/ Blue shift

Books: Authors: 1)  Weinberg, 2) Schutz  3) Hartle

Lectures: Notes written on the blackboard during class hours
Some brief slides with an overview of the lecture
80% attendance

Assignments: 6 Assignments of moderate difficulty (10% weightage). 2 tutorials of moderate difficulty. Erratic checking by the TA

Exams and Grading: 2 quizzes (10% each), midsem (30%) and endsem (40%)

Pro-Tips: Certain standard conventions vary across the books mentioned, stick to one particular convention. I just followed the instructor and Weinberg - proved to be sufficient for me.

Personal Comments: It's a very nice primer for the future courses in this line of physics- without much insight into the mathematical technicalities, it gives a good foundation for the physics intuition needed for GTR

Respondent: Amey Gaikwad

Note: This is a review to help you make a more informed choice about how to study for this course and/or choosing this course. While we've tried to keep it objective and complete, one must keep in mind that students have varying interests, methods of study, and the course itself changes from year to year.

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