PHYS 515 :: Physics Illinois :: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Welcome to General Relativity I !

Announcements will be posted here as necessary.

This is the main website for the UIUC Physics Department graduate course PHYS/ASTR 515 on General Relativity. This one-semester course covers the basics of Einstein's theory, developing the mathematical tools and the underlying physical concepts that lead to black holes, neutron stars, gravitational waves and cosmology. You can find a detailed course description, together with an explanation of the target audience for this class, in the course description and syllabus .

News:

Final exam
The final exam will be a take-home exam taking place on 6-7 May 2022. The exam will become available online at 9am CDT on Friday, 6 May 2022. The completed exam has to be submitted until 23:55pm CDT on Saturday, 7 May 2022 online via my.physics.
Please see the exam page for more details.

There will be no class on Monday, 11 April 2022, due to the APS meeting. There is no homework due on 13 April 2022. Instead we will pose a longer homework assignment due on 20 April 2022.

The results for the mid-term exam are now available.

The mid-term exam will take place on 9 March 2022 from 17:00-18:30 CST in 144 Loomis.

Starting 7 February 2022, Rohit's and Pratik's office hours will take place in 430 Loomis.

Our class will take place in 464 Loomis starting on 26 January 2022.

The first week, 18-21 January 2022, will take place fully online via zoom.

Time and location

This course will be in person unless instructed otherwise. If you need to isolate or quarantine, you can attend lectures online via zoom. You need to be logged in to zoom to join our lectures. Zoom recordings of the lectures will be posted here.
The first week, 18-21 January 2022, will take place fully online via zoom.

Time: Monday at 17:00 - 18:20 CST
Wednesday at 17:05 - 18:25 CST
Location: 464 Loomis Lab
Week1: online

Homework

Homework sets will become available online on Wednesday, starting in week 2. Homework sets are due on the following Wednesday at 11:59pm CST and they have to be submitted via my.physics.
In general, you are allowed to use computer algebra software, like Maple or Mathematica, unless stated otherwise. If you do use computer algebra software, together with your PDF solution, you must provide a well-formatted print of your code and attach it as part of your PDF solution. Under no circumstances are you allowed to use a computer algebra package, such as grTensor or xTensor, to calculate tensorial quantities.

Textbooks

We will mainly use "Spacetime and Geometry" by Sean Carroll. This and additional references for further reading are listed under Textbooks.

Academic integrity

All activities in this course are subject to the Academic Integrity rules as described in Article 1, Part 4, Academic Integrity, of the Student Code.