Lecture Date |
Topic |
Reading |
|---|---|---|
Preliminaries: First meetings with the odd properties of black holes |
||
| Aug. 27 | Prologue in outer space: What it is like to be in the neighborhood of some typical black holes | Thorne - Prologue |
| Aug. 29 | Prologue (cont.) | |
| Sept. 3 | Prologue (cont.) | |
Relativity: A non-mathematical introduction to the special and general theories of relativity |
||
| Sept. 5 | Galileo's theory of relativity: Measurements of physical quantities, reference frames, and spacetime diagrams | Thorne pg. 59-71 |
| Sept. 10 | Special relavitity: length contraction, time dilation, and velocity addition | Thorne pg. 71-86 |
| Sept. 12 | Lorentz transformation and Minkowski absolute interval; spacetime and the relativity of simultaneity; experimental tests of special relativity | Thorne pg. 87-93 |
| Sept. 17 | General relativity: Equivalence principle, time dilation and the Doppler effect, and curved spacetime | Thorne pg. 93-120 |
| Sept. 19 | Gravitational radiation: Einstein field equations and experimental tests of GR | Thorne Ch. 10 |
Quantum mechanics: Important microscopic properties of the very dense progenitors of black holes and their relatives, the degenerate stars |
||
| Sept. 24 | General relativity and the prediction of the existence of black holes | Thorne Ch. 3 |
| Sept. 26 | Exam #1 | |
| Oct. 1 | Black holes and how to prevent them | Thorne Ch. 3 |
| Oct. 3 | Electron degeneracy pressure and white dwarfs | Thorne Ch. 4 |
| Oct. 8 | Violent stellar death and neutron stars | Thorne Ch. 5 |
Observations of black holes: They really do exist in nature |
||
| Oct. 10 | Properties of real black holes according to GR | Thorne Ch. 6 |
| Oct. 15 | No class - Fall break! | |
| Oct. 17 | Energy and black holes | |
| Oct. 22 | Observations of stellar-mass black holes | Thorne Ch. 7 |
| Oct. 24 | The Galactic center | Thorne Ch. 8 |
| Oct. 29 | Supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei Description of the image of M87's black hole "shadow" |
Thorne Ch. 9 |
| Oct. 31 | Gamma rays of doom | |
The outsides and insides of horizons: Black holes and their relation to thermodynamics, Hawking radiation, and odd relativistic objects that can be considered combinations of black holes |
||
| Nov. 5 | Black hole evaporation | Thorne Ch. 12 |
| Nov. 7 | Exam #2 | |
| Nov. 12 | The insides of black holes | Thorne Ch. 11 & 13 |
| Nov. 14 | Wormholes | Thorne Ch. 14 |
Cosmology: The Big Bang and the large-scale structure of the Universe |
||
| Nov. 19 | Relativity and the Universe | |
| Nov. 21 | The Big Bang | |
| Nov. 26 | Big Bang cosmology | |
| Nov. 28 | No class - Thanksgiving break! | |
| Dec. 3 | The flat universe | |
| Dec. 5 | Exam #3 | |