PMU199S

Readings

Rationale

This course is designed around student participation. As part of your participation duty, you are expected to read two things each week before coming to class:

  1. online lecture notes, and
  2. the readings listed below.

The reason for these pre-class readings is simple: to ensure that you are well prepared and comfortable with talking about the material in front of other students.

Please note: Week numbers listed are the week the reading is for, so you will want to start your reading a few days ahead of time. Greene page numbers are given for the version of the book with ISBN 978-0-393-05858-1; page numbers may differ in your copy so I also list subsections by title in quotation marks.

Readings by Week Number

  1. [Intro and powers of 10] -- N/A.
  2. [Particle physics] -- Ch.1
  3. [Newton's laws] -- Ch.2 pp23-34 (from beginning to [end of] Truth and Consequences).
  4. [Einstein's refinements] -- Ch.2 pp34-52 (from The Effect On Time, Part 1 to the end).
  5. [GR and black holes] -- Ch.3.
  6. [Quantum weirdness] -- Ch.4 pp85-97 (from Introduction to What Are the Lumps?)
  7. [Quantum wavyness] -- Ch.4 pp 97-116 (from Is It a Wave or Is It a Particle? to the end).
  8. [Cosmology: weighing the universe] -- none.
  9. [Cosmology: a brief history of time] -- Ch.11 pp345-356 (from beginning to Inflation).
  10. [Unification] -- Ch.5
  11. [String theory] -- Ch.6 pp 135-165 (from beginning to The More Precise Answer)
  12. [Student Oral Presentations] -- N/A.