PHYS 515 :: Physics Illinois :: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Exams and Paper review
General information
We will have one paper review (instead of a midterm exam) and one final exam.
Please follow the instructions during the lecture and information on this website for any updates.
Final exam
The final exam will be an individual take-home exam taking place on 5-8 May 2023. The exam will become available online at 9am CDT on Friday, 5 May 2023. The completed exam has to be submitted until 23:55pm CDT on Monday, 8 May 2023 online via my.physics exam.
The final exam will be an individual exam, i.e., do not provide or receive help from anyone for the completion of the exam.
You are allowed to make use of Carroll's textbook "Spacetime and Geometry", and of your lecture notes and homework.
You are not allowed to use computer algebra programs such as mathematica, maple, matlab, any other textbook, the internet, or any other solutions.
In case you encounter any technical issues or require clarification of a question, please ask us over Piazza.
Remember that questions cannot be about an answer or how to solve a problem.
Show your work and explain your steps in order to get full credit. Intermediate steps and reasoning will be marked as well as the final answer.
| Time: | Friday, 5 May 2023, 9am CDT until Monday, 8 May 2023, 23:55pm CDT. |
| Exam sheet: | Final exam |
| Submission: | my.physics exam Deadline: Monday, 8 May 2023, 23:55pm CDT. |
Paper review
Instead of a midterm exam, you will write a short review on a research paper. The report is due on Wednesday, 8 March 2023, 23:55pm CST, and should be submitted online.
Please send us information about the paper that you wish to review until Friday, 3 March 2023.
Your review should be about an exciting research paper that you can find on the web about gravitation (broadly defined). You can search for papers using, e.g., the arXiv, iNSPIRES, Google Scholar, or the APS journals (Phys. Rev. Letters, Phys. Rev. D), IOP journals (Classical and Quantum Gravity), Journal for High-Energy Physics, etc.
The detailed instructions for the review are available here. The review should not take you more than 90 minutes. Please follow the instructions so that you don't spent more than 90 minutes on the review.
Please note that you will not be graded for your understanding of the paper that you review. Instead, you will get the points by making an honest effort to satisfy the instructions, that will teach you important skills that all scientists should have: reading a paper efficiently.
The paper review will make up 10% of your final grade.
Some suggestions for classic or recent research papers are here.
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.