PH426 Astrophysics (Spring 2017-18)
Instructor Name: Vikram Rentala
Course Type: Honours / Elective
Pre-requisites: None
Course Content: Prof. Rentala deals with different topics in astrophysics every year. This year the course was on cosmology. The first half covered prerequisites, including basic astronomy techniques of measuring distances, natural units and a very low-level introduction to general relativity. The second half covered introductory topics in cosmology, like the composition of the universe, Einstein equations, Hubble's Law, Friedmann Robertson Walker metric and redshifts.
Books: Modern Cosmology by Scott Dodelson
Lectures: Blackboard, no attendance requirements. Lectures are pitched at a non-physics background student and will be a repetition for any physics student who has taken a General Relativity course.
Assignments: 35% Project. The project requires weekly graded submissions on a group website, in the form of LaTex reports. It is time-consuming.
Exams and Grading: 25% Midsem, 40% Endsem, 35% Project. The exams are interesting and a bit challenging.
Online Material: Chief resources for the project: Arxiv, NASA ADS.
Pro-Tips: This course isn't really useful if you want to learn cosmology to the fullest. It is designed to give a very broad picture overview of the universe we live in, with a little mathematical analysis. The place to increase your knowledge if you want to study actual cosmology is the project, where you have the freedom to study anything you want and get graded on it.
Respondent: Viraj Karambelkar
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.
Course Type: Honours / Elective
Pre-requisites: None
Course Content: Prof. Rentala deals with different topics in astrophysics every year. This year the course was on cosmology. The first half covered prerequisites, including basic astronomy techniques of measuring distances, natural units and a very low-level introduction to general relativity. The second half covered introductory topics in cosmology, like the composition of the universe, Einstein equations, Hubble's Law, Friedmann Robertson Walker metric and redshifts.
Books: Modern Cosmology by Scott Dodelson
Lectures: Blackboard, no attendance requirements. Lectures are pitched at a non-physics background student and will be a repetition for any physics student who has taken a General Relativity course.
Assignments: 35% Project. The project requires weekly graded submissions on a group website, in the form of LaTex reports. It is time-consuming.
Exams and Grading: 25% Midsem, 40% Endsem, 35% Project. The exams are interesting and a bit challenging.
Online Material: Chief resources for the project: Arxiv, NASA ADS.
Pro-Tips: This course isn't really useful if you want to learn cosmology to the fullest. It is designed to give a very broad picture overview of the universe we live in, with a little mathematical analysis. The place to increase your knowledge if you want to study actual cosmology is the project, where you have the freedom to study anything you want and get graded on it.
Respondent: Viraj Karambelkar
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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