17.+Teacher+presentation+materials

=General Relativity=

Here is the basic text as it stands today, and a summary of formulas:

And here are the solutions to all of the exercises in the text. Sorry, but they're handwritten.

Here are the demonstrations I do, and links to some fun videos:

What might you want to cover? One day, two days, a lot of days?

And here are a couple of activities that can be tossed in, depending on your students:

Images
This first image is for the shift in the orbital period of the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar. The curve represents the decay in the orbit predicted by the loss of energy due to gravity waves. This one speaks to the puzzle that's called Newton's bucket. Here are the results of Gravity Probe B's experiment. The vertical axis shows the geodetic rotation, while the horizontal is the frame-dragging (Lens-Thirring) effect. This movie shows the motion of stars near the center of the galaxy. The red plus sign in the middle is the location of Sagitarius A*, a bright x-ray source. Based on the orbits and masses of these stars, we believe Sag A* is a supermassive black hole. These last images are just what they say they are. I have a couple of additional video clips I wanted to insert but they exceeded the limits of this wiki. One is from the x-games, showing a motorcycle flying through the air. The driver lets go, and it is weightless relative to the driver. The second is an old TV ad for CDW, a shipping company. I recorded it years ago on VHS tape, and then digitized it. But again, it's too big for this wiki. I can try to email them to you if both of our email systems will allow a big attachment. My email is sheilig@spa.edu.