Messages --- Physics 364, General Relativity
This page will contain updates or corrections to problem sets,
information about changes in class times, etc.
The final exam will be a twenty-four hour take-home
final, from noon March 10th to noon March 11th.
- Problem Set One, due 19 Jan
- Problem Set Two, due 26 Jan
- Problem Set Three, due 2 Feb
- Problem Set Four, due 9 Feb
- Problem Set Five, due 16 Feb
Since people are wondering: yes, problem 2 is pretty simple.
Sorry about that.
- Problem Set Six, due 23 Feb
Oops: there is a mistake in problem 1, that would distort your
calculation of the energy-momentum tensor. The current
Jμν is not actually independent of the metric;
the thing that is independent of the metric is a two-form
Kμν, related to Jμν by
Jμν = (1/2)εμνρσ
Kμν. Because of the inverse of the square root
of the metric determinant in εμνρσ,
that term does not contribute to the energy-momentum tensor at all.
- Problem Set Seven, due 2 March
There's a sign error in the problem set; should be a minus in
front of Lambda on the right-hand side.
Also, problem 1b is
hard, so here's a hint: two vectors are parallel if their
antisymmetrized tensor product vanishes. You can prove this
for the Killing vector and the 4-velocity by taking various
covariant derivatives of the Killing vector, using
hypersurface-orthogonality, the commutator of two covariant
derivatives, and Einstein's equation.