Lecture

Special and General Relativity

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In courses (2)

PHYS-427: Relativity and cosmology I

Introduce the students to general relativity and its classical tests. ...

PHYS-428: Relativity and cosmology II

This course is the basic introduction to modern cosmology. It introduces students to the main concepts and formalism of cosmology, the observational status of Hot Big Bang theory and discusses major physical processes in the early Universe. ...

Description

This lecture covers the fundamentals of special and general relativity, including topics such as Lorentz transformations, tensors, Newtonian gravity, Einstein equations, and tests of general relativity. The instructor also discusses the dynamics of gravitational fields, gravitational waves, and cosmological solutions of general relativity.

Instructor

Victor Gorbenko

Teaching & PhD PhD Students Jonas Dujava, Anders Wallberg, Mattia Varrone, Aleksandr Zhabin, Veronica Sacchi Courses Classical electrodynamics PHYS-324 The goal of this course is the study of the physical and conceptual consequences of Maxwell equations. Relativity and cosmology II PHYS-428 This course is the basic introduction to modern cosmology. It introduces students to the main concepts and formalism of cosmology, the observational status of Hot Big Bang theory and dis

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Physics

Relativity: General relativity, Special relativity

Electromagnetism: Electrodynamics

Mathematics

Analysis: Tensor analysis

Astronomy

Astrophysics: Physical cosmology

Related concepts (32)

Principle of relativity

In physics, the principle of relativity is the requirement that the equations describing the laws of physics have the same form in all admissible frames of reference. For example, in the framework of special relativity the Maxwell equations have the same form in all inertial frames of reference. In the framework of general relativity the Maxwell equations or the Einstein field equations have the same form in arbitrary frames of reference.

Theory of relativity

The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated physics theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical phenomena in the absence of gravity. General relativity explains the law of gravitation and its relation to the forces of nature. It applies to the cosmological and astrophysical realm, including astronomy.

Gravitational wave

Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity that are generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system, and propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1893 and then later by Henri Poincaré in 1905 as waves similar to electromagnetic waves but the gravitational equivalent. Gravitational waves were later predicted in 1916 by Albert Einstein on the basis of his general theory of relativity as ripples in spacetime.

Mixed tensor

In tensor analysis, a mixed tensor is a tensor which is neither strictly covariant nor strictly contravariant; at least one of the indices of a mixed tensor will be a subscript (covariant) and at least one of the indices will be a superscript (contravariant). A mixed tensor of type or valence , also written "type (M, N)", with both M > 0 and N > 0, is a tensor which has M contravariant indices and N covariant indices. Such a tensor can be defined as a linear function which maps an (M + N)-tuple of M one-forms and N vectors to a scalar.

Cosmological constant

In cosmology, the cosmological constant (usually denoted by the Greek capital letter lambda: Λ), alternatively called Einstein's cosmological constant, is the constant coefficient of a term that Albert Einstein temporarily added to his field equations of general relativity. He later removed it. Much later it was revived and reinterpreted as the energy density of space, or vacuum energy, that arises in quantum mechanics. It is closely associated with the concept of dark energy.

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