Graduate Relativity PHY 387M
Fall 2004
Unique Number 60785

T Th 8:00 -- 9:30
RLM 5.116

Text: Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler --Gravitation (Freeman, San Francisco 1973)

Instructor: Richard Matzner      Stand-in:  Scott Hawley
RLM 9.224                                   RLM 9.206 
471 5062                                   471 5426 
richard@helmholtz.ph.utexas.edu    shawley@physics.utexas.edu 

Office Hours: T Th 10--11,                    (TBA)
2:45--3:30



Physics 387M, the first semester of the Graduate Relativity course, will be offered in the Fall
semester 2004.




SYLLABUS

Brief Review of Special Relativity (August 26 --31; MTW Ch 2, 3)
The Equivalence Principle (Sept 2,9, MTW Ch. 7)
General Coordinate Systems (Sept 14--16; MTW Ch. 8 notice Box 8.4, especially "coordinate bases")
Curvature (Sept 21--23; MTW Ch 13)
The Einstein Equations (Sept 28--30)
--Particular Spacetimes
   -gravitational waves (Oct 5--7)
   -cosmology (Oct 12--14)
   -black holes (Oct 19--21)
Connections to Astrophysics (Oct 26-- Nov 18)
Special Topics (Nov 23-- Dec 2)



The syllabus will be updated for specificity during the semester.  It will be available at a Web
 site:

http://wwwrel.ph.utexas.edu/~richard/



This is an advanced Physics course.  Grading will be based on homework, a paper (topic selected in
consultation between instructor and student), and/or a written final exam.

Homework will be assigned every week and will be due one week later (the first homework will be
assigned on Tuesday August 31).

The student will have a choice of submitting a paper (due 8:AM Thursday December 9, 2004) or taking
final at the regularly scheduled time: Monday December 13, 2004; 2:00PM. 



Homework:  60%
Paper:  40%, or
Final:  40%