Assignment: Weeks 1 and 2: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Assignment: Weeks 1 and 2: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
INTRODUCTION
There are really only two Big Ideas in our text Exploring Black Holes (EBH). In the week #2
we study the first Big Idea: In the vicinity of a time-independent structure such as the
Earth or a star, neutron star, or black hole, a time-independent equation called a metric
relates aging along a segment of worldline to particle displacement in space and time
coordinates along that segment.
What does that mean? A free stone wearing a wristwatch moves from event A to nearby
event B. Between these two events the wristwatch on the stone records a time lapse dτ, where
τ is called the proper time or wristwatch time. The wristwatch time measures the aging of the
stone, or the aging of a puppy that rides on the stone. The metric tells us the amount of aging
for a given change in coordinates and time between events A and B. For flat spacetime, the
metric can be written:
2
= t 2 − s2
where τ is the aging (proper time, wristwatch time), t is the increase in coordinate time and s
is the distance between events A and B. Here space and time are measured in the same units,
for example years and light-years or meters and meters of light-travel time (EBH page 1-2).
u = t −s and v = t + s
A little weird? Sure, but giving the u and v of an event fixes uniquely its location in space and
time. In terms of the coordinates u and v, the metric for flat spacetime becomes:
= u •v
2
In Chapter 2 of EBH we meet the famous Schwarzschild metric, which describes spacetime
external to a spherically symmetric nonrotating center of gravitational attraction.
2M 2 dr 2
d 2 = 1− dt − − r 2d 2
r 2M
1 −
r
1. As in flat spacetime, time and distance are measured in the same units. In
addition, the mass M of the center of attraction is measured in units of distance
(EBH page 2-13).
2. For simplicity we assume that the two events occur in a plane through the center
of attraction (EBH page 2-15).
4. Coordinates r and t are bookkeeper coordinates, defined to make the metric look
simple. The radius r is the circumference of a circle at that distance from the
center divided by 2π (EBH page 2-7). The time t is the time read on clocks far
from the center of attraction (EBH page 2-27).
So the metric is the first Big Idea in EBH. The second Big Idea is called the Principle of
Maximal Aging, which uses the metric to determine how a free stone moves near a center of
gravitational attraction. This is the subject of Chapter 3, to be assigned in the fourth week of
the class.
The first scheduled evening seminar is on the first day of week #2.
Speakers at the evening seminar are experts in fields covered in the class. The first speaker
2. TEXTS
1. Exploring Black Holes: Introduction to General Relativity by Edwin F. Taylor and John
Archibald Wheeler, Addison Wesley Longman, 2000, ISBN 0-201-38423-X. Called "EBH" in
all assignments. NOTE: You should have the fifth printing; the first number in the very
bottom line of the Acknowledgments page (behind the title page) should be a 5.
2. Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy by Kip Thorne, W.W. Norton, 1994,
READ HANDOUT "Coordinates and Proper Time" by Edmund Bertschinger, a pdf file
In this first assignment you are asked to use the library, books, journals, and the world wide
web to research one possible end-of-term project that interests you and to prepare one or two
pages summarizing the physics behind the project. We prefer that the report not contain
equations, but you may include brief references and links to interesting websites. Of course
C. You will receive credit for submitting your summary, but the summary itself will not
be graded.
D. Doubtless some topics will be summarized by more than one person. That is OK.
E. You will NOT be obligated to work on the end-of-term project that you summarize in
this homework. Later you will be invited to express a preference for the project you
want to work on at the end of term.
You are encouraged to think of an alternative topic for a project and summarize the physics
of that topic instead of one on the list below. There are no limits to these alternative topics in
this assignment, but any topic not on the list below will have to be approved by instructor
before you work on it as an end-of-semester project. Any alternative project,indeed
any project on the following list, will ultimately need to attract enough class members
to form a team.
The Search for Black Holes (Thorne Chapter 8, which is by now out of date)
What evidence do astronomers have that black holes exist? How did they form?
What effect do they have on their environment? How common are they? If they’re
black, how can we see them? Half of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for
work that is helping to answer these questions.
Inside the Horizon of the Black Hole (EBH Project B, Thorne Chapter 13)
If you fall into a black hole and shine a flash light outwards, which reaches the
singularity first—you or the light? Since the Schwarzschild bookkeeper coordinates
go crazy inside the horizon, are there coordinates that are well-behaved across the
horizon? What is the singularity really like?
Taylor-Hulse Binary
Why did Taylor and Hulse win the Nobel Prize? How did they measure the masses of
two neutron stars to better than 1% accuracy? Why is the orbit of their two stars
shrinking, how fast is it shrinking, and what will happen when it shrinks to the size of
Boston? How did the stars get in this predicament?
Hawking Radiation (Thorne Chapter 12, EBH boxes on pages 2-4 and 5-27)
What are the laws of black hole thermodynamics? How do they suggest that black
holes may not be black, and that by emitting radiation an isolated black hole could
evaporate? What is the temperature of the blackbody radiation emitted by a black
hole? How long do black holes live before they evaporate?