APM426/MAT1700S: Introduction to General Relativity
Time: MWF 3:10-4:00p.m.
Place: WE69
5016G Sydney Smith Hall
Office Hours: Wednesdays 10:00-11:00 and by appointment.
Email address:
colliand@math.toronto.edu
Course homepage:
http://www.math.toronto.edu/~colliand/426/426.html
Marking Scheme:
Students will be expected to read material outside of
the lectures in the field of
general relativity and prepare a typeset paper surveying
a topic of interest. Selected
papers may be presented in class by the student and/or
me.
Textbooks:
General Relativity by Robert M. Wald (This will be our main text.)
In addition to the book of Wald, I have found it useful
to consult
A first course in general relativity by Bernard Schutz.
Also, the
lecture notes by Sean Carroll have been an excellent resource. If there
is sufficient interest, I can arrange to have these photocopied
and made available as
a course packet.
The lectures will also be supplemented with selections
from
The Classical Theory of Fields
by Landau and Lifschitz and other sources.
Course Topics:
These are still under consideration but I will generally
follow Part I of Wald with hopes of
going further.
Relativity Links:
Sean Carroll's page
Numerical Relativity Exhibitions
Einstein explaining E=mc^2.
The LIGO project
The Lisa project
Living Reviews (of topics in relativity)
Caltech's Physics 236-General Relativity
Academic Calendar:
The University of Toronto academic calendar is linked
here.