for those interested, I just got this in my email, I personally enjoyed this course a few years back, unless he has changed it a lot it will not be big distraction academically unless you really want to work out the details. In that case it could take a little time.

Quote :

" To graduate students and advanced undergraduate students: FOUNDATIONS of GENERAL RELATIVITY Arkady Kheyfets (akheyfets@math.ncsu.edu) MA 797R.003 Spring 2008 The main objective of the course is to provide a comprehensive exposition of foundations of general relativity starting from basics and to show that the structure of this theory is determined by considerations of consistency and fitting to observations to such an extent that, in fact, it would be hard or impossible to formulate this theory in any other way. General relativity is known to be a notoriously hard subject for beginners and for those who attempt to learn it on their own. Despite the abundance of recent texts some of which claim to be rigorous, this situation has not improved at all. The reason is, basically, that ``the rigor'' is introduced in wrong place. In most cases, it amounts to more modern exposition of manifolds and geometries, which, in fact, is still not anywhere close to what one can find in mathematical literature, but does not even touch the true source of difficulties. My previous experience in teaching relativity shows that the troubles usually are caused by inability of beginners to delineate between the elements of mathematical structure responsible for the consistency of the theory and the ones that relate it to observations. In the suggested course I intend to take care of this problem and thus to provide the firm ground for developing the variational formalism (both Lagrangian and Hamiltonian) of general relativity. This will involve study of what is called the initial value problem in general relativity and proper analysis of geometrodynamic degrees of freedom which, in turns, will provide the proper foundation for canonical gravity quantization and its. The time and place of lectures will be specified later, but the class will meet twice a week (late afternoon, or evening time is most likely) for one hour long lectures. The advanced nature of the course will result in necessity to work with multiple sources, but the main source will be the book ``Gravitation'' by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler. The lectures will be designed to clear the subject of inessential details, thus making it tractable and accessible for students. Please, e-mail me if you are interested in taking this course and let me know your general background as it will influence, to an extent, the particulars of the course. In addition, this will allow me later to use your input in working out the times of class meetings. My e-mail is kheyfets@math.ncsu.edu Also, please, feel welcome to stop by my office if you want to talk about it (HA 144). "

[Edited on October 4, 2007 at 11:29 AM. Reason : . yes he really means undergraduates are welcome, don't be scared.]

10/4/2007 11:28:42 AM

I have a feeling that not to many Ph.D level students run through TWW. You'd be better off posting fliers around harrelson

10/4/2007 4:49:39 PM

they're there.

people on tww were asking about this course a few weeks ago, though.

10/4/2007 4:53:11 PM

When I took the course I was but a lowly undergraduate. I had just seen the beginnings of manifold theory and my grasp of abstract math was far from complete. All of those things mattered not because the course is more or less self-contained. Just roll with it and see what you can pick up. Glad I did, I've benefited from the intuitive picture as well as the calculations that I did in that course later in my PhD work. Kheyfets is an unusual critter, he has spent pretty much his entire career studying GR. Anybody who was interested could learn much from him.

10/4/2007 10:49:34 PM

mathman, are you teaching any classes this semester?

10/5/2007 4:48:20 PM

yeah.

10/5/2007 10:57:22 PM

i had a grad student for 141 last semester, was it you

10/6/2007 12:57:31 PM

probably not if you passed.

10/6/2007 10:31:23 PM

part of me wants to take this and part of me thinks i'll get my ass handed to me

10/7/2007 1:03:35 AM

^Take it. Getting your ass handed to you is something any science major should be familiar with.

10/7/2007 8:44:41 AM

hmmm, i'm pretty interested in this class actually

10/7/2007 1:17:21 PM