Administrative
Assistants to Kip and to TAPIR:
For course issues and to make appointments with Kip: JoAnn Boyd. 161 West Bridge. X4280.
Email: joann@tapir.caltech.edu
For tapir issues: Shirley Hampton. 151 Bridge Annex. X4597. Email: shirley@tapir.caltech.edu
Teaching Assistants for Second Term:
Dan Grin. 158 West Bridge, X2684, dgrin@caltech.edu.
Nate Bode. 158 West Bridge, X2685, nbode@caltech.edu.
Office hours: Tuesday, 7:10 PM to 9:00 PM, TAPIR Interaction Room (319 Cahill)
Nate and Dan will alternate office hours weekly
This year long course will be following the unpublished textbook by Roger Blandford and Kip Thorne, included below. First term will cover chapters 1 through 9 which will, broadly speaking, include special relativity, statistical physics, and optics. In the winter term the next nine chapters (10 through 18) will be covered, studying elasticity, fluid mechanics and magneothydrodynamics. The spring term will cover the final nine chapters (19 through 27), including plasma physics and general relativity & cosmology.
The course description will be found here. The course is pass-fail and letter grades will be given by petition only. You can also read the preface to the text to learn more about the philosophy of the course and the topics to be covered.
Below are links to the current version of the textbook for this course, which is authored by Blandford and Thorne. This textbook can be freely used by students taking the course. People not taking the course are free to download a single copy of the textbook for personal use, but duplication of additional copies and distribution to others besides the downloading person require the express consent of the authors. Please send errata and suggestions for improvements to kip@caltech.edu.
Blandford and Thorne are currently revising this textbook. The versions "04..." and "06..." of each chapter, below, are from previous years 2004-05 and 2006-07 of this course. A new "08...." version of each chapter will be provided on the Wednesday evening that Kip finishes lecturing about it, if not before. Homework problems will be drawn from the new "08..." version of each chapter, so do not rely on the earlier versions when working on the problems.
Kip will provide a homework assignment, at a link below, on the Wednesday evening that he finishes lecturing about that assignment's chapter. The students' solutions must be turned in at the beginning of the following Wednesday class (the link's indicated due date). Solutions prepared by the TAs will be provided at a link below soon after the class at which the students' solutions are turned in. See the course description for further detail.