Physics 264    Spacetime and Black Holes

Instructor:  Savdeep Sethi

Textbook:  Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity  by James Hartle

Location & Time: KPTC 103, T-Th 12:30-1:50

This course will serve as an introduction to the beautiful topic of general relativity and the physics of black holes.


Tentative Syllabus
Exams

The midterm is scheduled for the week of October 27 and the final, or possibly final project, will be the week of December 8 determined by the College.
Problem Sets

Problem sets and solutions will be posted on Canvas.


References & Additional Sources

There are lots of good books on this topic ranging from popular science to textbook level. Here
are a few that look interesting:

A First Course in General Relativity by Bernard Schutz
An Introduction to Relativity by Jayant Narlikar
Spacetime and Geometry by Sean Carroll
General Relativity by Robert Wald (somewhat higher level text)

At a more popular science level:

Space, Time, and Gravity by Robert Wald
Black Holes & Time Warps by Kip Thorne 


Here is a link to a simulation of two black holes merging into one from the LIGO website. There are a lot of good youtube videos about the formation
and mergers of black holes. We are in an exciting era of gravitational wave detection!