Corona Info, Lecture Notes, Exercises, Solutions, and more ...
The most recent and up-do-date information about this course
will always be available here!
Oral Exams
Dates:
All:
If you are planning to take the exam some time
in January / February 2019, please
sign up for the exam via KSL now!
Note: exam date and time given in KSL are of course fictitious;
latest date for (de-)registration is Friday January 8.
Theory Master Students:
Dates are January 12/13/14. See the
information below for available slots and contact me for
preferred time *after* you have registered for the exam in KSL.
Others: If you are happy with these dates, please also
sign up for one of these slots. If not,
contact me for individual appointments. (These appointments will then also appear in the list below.)
If you are
planning to take the exam at a much later stage, e.g. in the summer,
there is no need to sign up now.
Confirmed/agreed Dates and Time:
January 12, 11h: Tim Schmidt
January 12, 12h: Barbara Jenny
January 12, 14h:
January 12, 15h:
January 13, 11h: Marco Brühlmann
January 13, 12h: Tabea Krucker
January 13, 14h:
January 13, 15h:
January 14, 11h: Joel Gogniat
January 14, 12h: Samuel Marc Oberholzer
January 14, 14h: Jan Kunzmann
January 14, 15h: Marius Descombes (postponed)
January 26, 12h: Andres Joya
Other Date/Time:
...
Further Information:
Exams will take place via Zoom (Admission
with Waiting Room enabled)
Tablet/iPad or something equivalent is required.
There will be a Question (and Answer!) Session on Tuesday
January 5, at 12h15 (the usual GR lecture time), and another
one on Friday January 8, at 12h15. Same zoom link as for the GR lectures.
Contents: During each exam, I will try to touch upon the following 4 general
subjects:
Dynamics of Particles and Fields in a Gravitational Field:
metric and gravitational field, geodesic equation, action principle,
Newtonian limit, redshift, conserved charges, minimal coupling, scalar
field, definition of energy momentum tensor etc
Dynamics of the Gravitational Field:
Einstein equations and their main properties (definition of Riemann, Ricci etc,
number of equations, role of Bianchi, ...). Einstein-Hilbert action. vacuum
Einstein equations etc
Schwarzschild Metric and the Solar System:
main properties of the metric; derivation of the effective potential and orbit
equations;
main qualitative difference(s) between Kepler and GR orbits etc
Schwarzschild Metric and Black Holes:
significance of r=2m: what happens or does not happen there; tortoise and Eddington-Finkelstein
coordinates; freely falling versus static observers; behaviour of lightcones; Kruskal diagram etc
The Course and Lectures: How and When and Where
If you wish to attend and follow the course, receive the zoom links and future
information, you have to register with me via email. So please send me an email
(to blau at itp dot unibe dot ch).
We will start the course with a
Zoom Session at 13h15 on September 14th.
Further Information:
Please watch this page for the latest information about
the course and the lectures!
The schedule is:
Monday 13h15 -- 15h
Tuesday 12h15 -- 14h
Here is the Plan, Week by Week:
Week 01 (September 14/15): Zoom
Week 02 (September 21/22): In-person in room 119
Week 03 (September 28/29): In-person in room 119
Week 04 (October 05/06) and until the end of the Semester: Zoom
Note:
this new version has 900+ pages (!).
Please save trees and don't print all of it at once, we will only cover some small parts of
the notes in the course
Prerequisites
Covariant Formulation of Special Relativity (Minkowski Geometry, Lorentz Tensor Algebra etc.)
Classical Field Theory (Action Principles for Fields)
Multivariable Calculus
Contents
Physical and Mathematical Foundations of General Relativity
J.B. Hartle: Gravity, An introduction to Einstein's General Relativity
Elegant Modern Slightly More Advanced Books
R.M. Wald: General Relativity
S. Carroll: Spacetime and Geometry, an Introduction to General Relativity
Classics
C.W. Misner, K.S. Thorne, J.A. Wheeler: Gravitation
S. Weinberg: Gravitation and Cosmology
Other Personal Favourites
R.U. Sexl, H.K. Urbantke: Gravitation und Kosmologie
N. Straumann: General Relativity
S.W. Hawking, G.F.R. Ellis: The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time
E. Poisson: A Relativist's Toolkit
Other Recommended Recent/New Books
A. Zee: Einstein Gravity in a Nutshell
GR Lectures Notes on the WWW and related Online Resources
Note: the resources mentioned below are approved/recommended. If you come across, and want to use, some other
online resources, please come and show them to me (also in GR, there is much more low- than high-quality
stuff floating around on the WWW and it may not always be easy for you to decide at first sight which is which).
Please let me know of any broken (no longer existing) links.
Is our Universe a Black Hole? NO And since I get
asked this question again and again (as if there weren't more interesting questions), usually by people
who understand neither cosmology nor black holes, here are some links:
