A Mathematically Sound Introduction to Relativity for Math, Physics and Astronomy Majors

5. Future Modifications ot the Course

I see two shortcomings to the course as it is now:

  1. light treatment of the mathematical topics of tensors and manifolds, and
  2. an absence of advanced topics such as methods of solving the field equations and cosmology.
Since the course is currently only offered during 5 week terms, it is impossible to cover anything but the basics. In the future, though, it is my desire to run the course during a "regular" 4 month semester and to include some advanced topics. An excellent text for such topics which maintains the desired level of mathematical rigor is Robert Wald's General Relativity [4]. It will be a delicate balancing act, however, inserting advanced topics and still maintaining a calculus/linear algebra prerequisite.

Work is underway to offer the class as an internet course during summer 2000. Since classnotes are already typed up in LaTeX, it is possible to post them on the internet. Initial steps are being taken to convert the LaTeX, files to various formats. It seems that the software LaTeX2HTML produces HTML files which are reasonably easy to read off of the computer screen. However, for purposes of producing printed copies of the classnotes, it seems that the PDF and Postscript formats are best. Results of this endeavor will be posted on the internet at

http://www.etsu.edu/math/gardner/5310/5310.htm


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