Relativity and Cosmology: Einstein and Beyond!

Spring Semesters

Why can't you go faster than the speed of light? What does it mean to say that matter warps spacetime?

This course introduces the basic concepts of relativistic physics: Lorentzian spacetime and curved spacetime.

We also address many other topics such as the twins paradox, black holes, and Penrose diagrams.

Corequisite: no previous physics required - but you do need some calculus (Mat 285 or Mat 295) or the permission of the instructor.

Spring 2003 Course Syllabus (pdf format)

Spring 2003 lecture notes (pdf, 305 pages, 1.9 MB). These notes are also available as the PHY312 course reader from SU Bookstore.

The .avi video of the Quarter and Feather demonstration

All notes, etc for PHY312 are in PDF format (this allows the best rendering of graphics, text, and equations together). Click below if you need to install a PDF reader.

Check out the Society of Physics Students

* Homework Assignments and Solutions *

Related Colloquia and Public Lectures Some past PHY312 student projects Links

Contact Prof. Marolf at marolf@suhep.phy.syr.edufor more details.

Related Physics Colloquia and Saturday Morning Physics Lectures

(2/6) The Dark Side of the Universe: Beyond Stars and the Starstuff We Are Made of Michael Turner (U. Chicago), Thursday, 4pm in Physics 204
(2/8) The Case of the Missing Anti-Matter by Sheldon Stone, Marina Artuso, Tomasz Skwanicki, Steve Blusk, and J.C. Wang, Saturday, 10:30 AM, Stolkin Auditorium

Note: Physics colloquia are (supposedly) at a level accessible to beginning grad students. Undergraduates attending a colloquium should not expect to follow everything, but may still find them interesting if they have some background in the subject.

Students in PHY312 do ``course projects.'' I have electronic copies of some of them, and here they are! (Posted with permission of the authors.) Some of the students did really neat stuff!

Jillian's Guide to Black Holes by Jillian Bornack
The Twin Paradox Song by Peter Cranson. Here are the .mp3 files for track 1, track 2, and track 3.
Luke Sturgeon's Ether Song.mp3
Brane Worlds and Extra Dimensions by Brian Gantz. See also the references.
Breaking the Speed Barrier by Keith Furhhop.
The Global Positioning System by an anonymous student.

The appearance of a spaceship in motion by James Brennan. There is more to this project that I have not yet been able to put on the web.

Kenny Lee and Chris Walsh's Black Hole Collision Pages

Matt McCarthy's Relativity site complete with working C programs

Visual Effects at near Light Speed by John McDonald.

The Einstein Equations by Aaron Keish-Walter.

Prof. Marolf's web page has a number of relativity links.

See also the Syracuse University Fundamental Theory Group homepage.

Physics Courses: Shopper's Guide

Development of this course was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant PHY-9722362. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

marolf@physics.syr.edu