=========================== Some Ideas for Paper Topics =========================== In some cases I've given some good starting references. Clearly it is important for you to find your own references too! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Albert Michelson and the Michelson-Morley experiment The book _Michelson and the Speed of Light_ by B. Jaffe The book _Master of Light: A Biography of Albert A. Michelson_ by D.M. Livingston The book _Albert A. Michelson: America's First Nobel Prize Physicist_ by J.H. Wilson http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Modern and historical measurements of the speed of light The book _Michelson and the Speed of Light_ by B. Jaffe http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/speed_of_light.html http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/measure_c.html http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9810479 (Schaefer) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The precession of Mercury's orbit The book _Was Einstein Right?: Putting General Relativity to the Test_ by C.M. Will http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/mercury_orbit.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lorentz-Fitzgerald length contraction The article "The Origins of Length Contraction: I. The FitzGerald-Lorentz Deformation Hypothesis" by Harvey R. Brown (2001; American Journal of Physics, Vol. 69, No. 10, pages 1044-1054) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Modern tests of special and general relativity The book _Was Einstein Right?: Putting General Relativity to the Test_ by C.M. Will http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Observational searches for "frame dragging" with the LAGEOS satellites and Gravity Probe B The October 21, 2004 issue of Nature. http://einstein.stanford.edu/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The effects of relativity upon the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites Article by Neil Ashby on page 41 of the May 2002 issue of Physics Today Project A in the book _Exploring Black Holes_ by E.F. Taylor and J.A. Wheeler ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Implications of relativity for travel to distant stars Page 66 of the February 2003 Sky & Telescope http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/rocket.html http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/TwinParadox/twin_paradox.html http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/Spaceship/spaceship.html http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/PAO/warp.htm http://www.astro.psu.edu/users/cwc/sts497i/Millis/transcript.txt ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Classical and relativistic aberration of light http://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/aberration.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eddington's expedition to measure light bending and modern studies of gravitational lensing http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0102462 (Coles) http://vela.astro.ulg.ac.be/themes/extragal/gravlens/bibdat/engl/index.html http://vela.astro.ulg.ac.be/themes/extragal/gravlens/bibdat/engl/lens.html http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/Lenses/GRLens.html http://www.iam.ubc.ca/~newbury/lenses/lenses.html http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9510104 (Bennett et al.) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9606001 (Narayan & Bartelmann) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0302294 (Fomalont & Kopeikin) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0304252 (Evans) "0957+561 A,B - Twin quasi-stellar objects or gravitational lens" by D. Walsh, R.F. Carswell, and R.J. Weymann, Nature, 279, 381, 1979. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Non-Euclidean geometry and its relevance to relativity The book _Geometry, Relativity, and the Fourth Dimension_ by Rudolf V.B. Rucker The book _Ideas of Space: Euclidean, Non-Euclidean, and Relativistic_ by Jeremy Gray ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Einstein's struggle to create general relativity The book _Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein_ by A. Pais The book _The Genesis of General Relativity: Sources and Interpretations_ by Jurgen Renn ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Karl Schwarzschild's solution to Einstein's equations, and reactions to the "Schwarzschild singularity" The book _Truth and Beauty: Aesthetics and Motivations in Science_ by S. Chandrasekhar The article "Dark Stars: The Evolution of an Idea" by W. Israel in the book _300 Years of Gravitation_ by S. Hawking and W. Israel The article "The Early Interpretation of the Schwarzschild Solution" by J. Eisenstaedt in the book _Einstein and the History of General Relativity_ by D. Howard and J. Stachel (1989). ISBN: 0817633928 The article "On a Stationary System with Spherical Symmetry Consisting of Many Gravitating Masses" by A. Einstein (1939; Annals of Mathematics; Vol. 40, No. 4, Page 922) "Schwarzschild and Synge once again" by H.-J. Schmidt http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0408017 "More on the early interpretation of the Schwarzschild solution" by A. Gsponer http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0408100 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Massive stars that will die to make black holes The article "Enigmatic Eta Carinae" by Julian Pittard in the Feb 2003 issue of Astronomy & Geophysics. I have a copy of this if you can't find it. http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0110162 (Dar & De Rujula) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0212469 (Heger et al.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chandrasekhar's calculation of the maximum white dwarf mass "The Maximum Mass of Ideal White Dwarfs" by S. Chandrasekhar, The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 74, pages 81-82, 1931 (available from http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html) The book _Empire of the Stars: Obsession, Friendship, and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes_ by A.I. Miller The book _Chandra: A Biography of S. Chandrasekhar_ by K.C. Wali The book _Chandrasekhar: The Man Behind the Legend, Chandra Remembered_ by K.C. Wali ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The maximum mass of a neutron star and efforts to measure the fundamental properties of neutron stars http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9608059 (Kalogera & Baym) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0301073 (Haensel) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0211126 (Cottam et al.) Call up George Pavlov (in the Penn State Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics) and ask for an interview: 865-9482 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Oppenheimer and the Oppenheimer-Snyder calculation The book _The Swift Years: The Robert Oppenheimer Story_ by P. Michelmore The book _J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds_ by P. Goodchild The book _American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer_ by K. Bird and M.J. Sherwin ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Details on a method for finding stellar-mass black holes http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9806217 (Charles) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0606352 (Remillard & McClintock) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0109467 (Bennett et al.) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0109539 (Agol & Kamionkowski) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Microquasars - Stellar-mass black holes with jets The book _The Quest for SS433_ by David H. Clark http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9902062 (Mirabel & Rodriguez) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0011315 (Mirabel) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0101233 (Fender) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0211085 (Mirabel) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- What have we learned about accretion disks around black holes? The article "A Universe of Disks" by O. Blaes in the October 2004 issue of Scientific American. Call up Mike Eracleous (in the Penn State Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics) and ask for an interview: 863-6041 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Extreme effects near a black hole (spaghettification, strong curvature of light, apparent stoppage of time) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/rjn_bht.html http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/schw.shtml http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0212055 (Zhang et al.) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0308325 (Gott & Freedman) Check some of the "other good books" listed on the course WWW page. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- An aspect of gamma-ray burst studies The book _Flash! The Hunt for the Biggest Explosions in the Universe_ by G. Schilling The book _The Biggest Bangs_ by J. Katz The article by Neil Gehrels et al. on page 85 of the December 2002 issue of Scientific American http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0111170 (Meszaros) Call up Peter Meszaros (in the Penn State Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics) and ask for an interview: 865-0410 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer http://swift.sonoma.edu/ http://www.swift.psu.edu/ Call up John Nousek (in the Penn State Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics) and ask for an interview and tour: 865-7747 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Relativistic cosmic rays from gamma-ray bursts and black holes Page 32 of the March 2003 Sky & Telescope The book _Cosmic Bullets: High-Energy Particles in Astrophysics_ by R. Clay and B. Dawson The book _A Thin Cosmic Rain_ by M.W. Friedlander http://www.auger.org/ http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0111059 (Halzen) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0204419 (Torres et al.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The supermassive black hole at the Galactic center The book _The Black Hole at the Center of Our Galaxy_ by F. Melia http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0009339 (Ghez et al.) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0102151 (Baganoff et al.) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0109367 (Baganoff et al.) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0303408 (Ott et al.) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0305074 (Goss et al.) http://www.mpe-garching.mpg.de/www_ir/GC/gc.html http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/gcnews/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hibernating supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0007400 (Kormendy) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0105230 (Kormendy & Gebhardt) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0107134 (Merritt & Ferrarese) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0304004 (Adams et al.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Relativistic jets from active galaxies http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9903162 (Coppi) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0103020 (Wiita) http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/atlas/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Binary supermassive black holes http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0208001 (Merritt & Ekers) http://www.ira.bo.cnr.it/~murgia/Radioastronomy/NGC326/IMAGES/index.html http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0212099 (Komossa et al.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Intermediate-mass black holes - Between stellar mass and supermassive black holes http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0302101 (van der Marel) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first stars and stellar-mass black holes in the Universe http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0005246 (Norman et al.) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0112059 (Heger et al.) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0112088 (Abel et al.) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0301406 (Bromm & Loeb) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first supermassive black holes in the Universe http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0108063 (Fan et al.) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0212082 (Brandt et al.) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0212400 (Bromm & Loeb) http://www.sdss.org/ Call up Niel Brandt (in the Penn State Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics) and ask for an interview: 865-3509 Call up Don Schneider (in the Penn State Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics) and ask for an interview: 863-9554 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Supercomputer calculations of colliding black holes Call up Pablo Laguna (in the Penn State Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics) and ask for an interview: 863-8470 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Binary pulsars and the indirect evidence for gravitational wave radiation The "Pas de Deux" chapter in the book _Einstein's Unfinished Symphony_ by M. Bartusiak The book _Gravity's Shadow_ by H. Collins The book _Traveling at the Speed of Thought_ by D. Kennefick http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0211217 (Weisberg & Taylor) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0307536 (Stairs) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Direct searches for gravitational waves, such as LIGO and LISA The book _Einstein's Unfinished Symphony_ by M. Bartusiak The book _Gravity's Shadow_ by H. Collins The book _Traveling at the Speed of Thought_ by D. Kennefick http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/ http://lisa.jpl.nasa.gov/ Call up Sam Finn (in the Penn State Department of Physics) and ask for an interview: 863-9598 Call up Steinn Sigurdsson (in the Penn State Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics) and ask for an interview: 863-6038 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Attempts to measure the "speed of gravity" Page 28 of the April 2003 Sky & Telescope http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/grav_speed.html http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0206022 (Kopeikin & Fomalont) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0206266 (Asada) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0301145 (Will) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0302294 (Fomalont & Kopeikin) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0302462 (Kopeikin) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0303346 (Faber) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0304006 (Samuel) http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/gravity_speed_030107.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The "no hair" theorem ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Primordial black holes "Gamma-Rays and Energetic Particles from Primordial Black Holes" by F. Halzen et al., Nature, 353, 807, 1991. "Primordial Black Holes as a Probe of Cosmology and High Energy Physics" by B.J. Carr (http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0310838) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0304478 (Sahlen) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0304528 (Barrau et al.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Black hole entropy and Hawking radiation http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0304042 (Helfer) The article "Quantum Black Holes" by B.J. Carr and S.B. Giddings in the May 2005 issue of Scientific American. "Black Holes at Accelerators" by S.B. Giddings (http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0205027) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Black holes and the "quantum of area" (the minimum possible area) "The Quantum of Area?" by John Baez, Nature, 721, 702, 2003. This short review has several relevant references too. Call up Abhay Ashtekar (in the Penn State Department of Physics) and ask for an interview: 863-9601 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Black hole interiors and singularities ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Relations between black holes and quantum gravity Call up Abhay Ashtekar (in the Penn State Department of Physics) and ask for an interview: 863-9601 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The cosmological constant and the accelerating Universe The book _The Extravagant Universe: Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Cosmos_ by R. Kirshner Article by Michael Turner on page 10 of the April 2003 issue of Physics Today Article by Bertram Schwarzschild on page 21 of the April 2003 issue of Physics Today Article by Saul Perlmutter on page 53 of the April 2003 issue of Physics Today http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0212290 (Padmanabhan) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0302209 (Spergel et al.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Additional "large" or "small" dimensions to our Universe as possible explanations for the weakness of gravity and "theories of everything" (with implications for microscopic black hole formation) Article by Robert Naeye on page 39 of the June 2003 issue of Sky and Telescope The article "Quantum Black Holes" by B.J. Carr and S.B. Giddings in the May 2005 issue of Scientific American. "Black Holes at Accelerators" by S.B. Giddings (http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0205027) The book _The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory_ by Brian Greene ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The theory of cosmological natural selection The book _The Life of the Cosmos_ by L. Smolin http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9712189 (Smolin) http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0407213 (Smolin) Article by T. Rothman and G.F.R. Ellis on page 201 of the June 1993 issue of The Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society (QJRAS, Vol. 34, No. 2, page 201) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------