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We have now graded the exams. For every student, the full results also include a breakdown of the points achieved per sub-problem (based on the detailed grading instructions).
In this way, the point distribution and final grade should be highly transparent -- but please let us know if you have any questions or doubts! This applies in particular if you consider to appeal against the grade, keeping in mind that this always implies significant resources for the institute (for hiring an external censor, who anyway will be provided with exactly the same grading instructions). Of course, if you after consultation still do not think that the grading instructions were applied correctly in your case, you s...
Hi everyone
Apologies for the delay for solutions to PS 15. I'll upload it sometime this week. In general, I hope the solutions have been useful in helping you learn and understand a bit of GR.
With exam season in full swing, here are some unsolicited pieces of advice for dealing with the weeks ahead, in particular when studying for GR:
* Get plenty of sleep, each and every day. It's a seriously underrated commodity, especially among physics students.
* In a similar vein, don't forget to eat regularly and take walks. This year spring is a rare sunny one. I know I'm more anxious for it as a South African, but you can never have too many nice days.
* If you aren't focusing or understanding something, take it easy on yourself. Exams really up the pressure and therefore focusing can sometimes be tough. On top of that GR is *actually* hard. The occasional lack of motivation is expected, so do...
I just put out the last and final exercise sheet. Note that this will be discussed in two weeks from now, because next week there is a veeeery long weekend.
The last lecture will be on May 30. This will not be a proper lecture but a Q&A session, where I'll try to answer whatever question you may have about the course content. Preparing questions for this is a great preparation for the exam, too...!
I won't be available at 12 today, so as mentioned in the last message, both today and next Friday will be ''teaching by correspondence''.
I saw some posts on astro-discourse; I'll try to reply to those later today.
I have also uploaded the solutions to set 12.
Jake
Hi everyone, I (Jake) am away for another two weeks.
-- The plan this week is to meet on zoom for problem set 11. The link will be added soon.
-- Next week, there is no one to take the session on Friday 'live', so as a once-off, I'll upload the solutions for problem set 12 on Monday for you to work with throughout the week.
-- If you have any questions about set 12, you can post on astro-discourse (a good time to get familiar with the forum) and I'll look at them on Friday.
-- That said, I will mostly *not* be online for a lot of the next two weeks. I may only reply to the astro-discourse posts the Monday after the 28th.
-- Additionally, my situation currently is such that I may not, at short notice, be available this Friday either. To preempt this, I have uploaded the solutions to set 11 already. Worst case, we do the 'read solutions and post on astro-discourse' two weeks in a row.
-- I...
Howzit everyone,
Following on from the discussions last Friday, I've updated the solutions to set 8 to include more explicit references to formulas in Carroll, and also have added in extra explanations where necessary.
Hope it's clearer. And thanks for the feedback on the solutions; the better they can be, the better for everyone (and nothing is ever perfect).
Have a good week!
Jake
As announced previously, this week's lectures are digital. I just added shorted movies to cover there material for tomorrow, 21 March: movie1, movie2, movie3, movie4, movie5
For convenience, I also added only the `blackboard' notes as a single pdf file.
Next week, we will continue with physical lectures starting from the point where the digital lectu...
Please log into the AstroDiscourse forum for a link to a (fully anonymous) midterm evaluation. This shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes to answer, and it would be great to get feedback from as many of you as possible... thanks!
Hi all
Following a question during the opening lecture, here are some recommendations for resources for GR.
Two introductory books that you may find helpful to use in conjunction with Carroll are A First Course in General Relativity (2nd ed.) by Bernard Schutz as well as Einstein Gravity in a Nutshell by Anthony Zee.
Schutz is the other ''standard'' intro to GR book. His style is very clear and easy to follow. However, it is occasionally too introductory (the book grew out of undergrad notes, so the level is pitched accordingly). It covers the same content as Carroll, and in the same order. If a section in Carroll isn't making sense, sometimes swapping over to Schutz and back to Carroll may help.
Zee is easily the best textbook writer I've read; but, the pleasantness of his style aside, his GR book is unorthodox. Some rath...
In this course we will use AstroDiscourse for communicating outside of lecture / group exercise hours. So please take a look at a quick start guide if you haven't used this tool before.
In general, this kind of tool is really useful once one gets above a critical level of usage. So use it actively to ask and discuss any questions you may have!
The course starts on Tuesday, January 24, with an introductory lecture -- mostly explaining how the course is set up, its 'rules' and what will be covered.
In order to get out most of the course, please make sure to fresh up your background knowledge as soon as possible -- ideally already before next Tuesday (or Wednesday).
Welcome everyone to the fascinating world of general relativity!
Torsten Bringmann