General Information about 8.286 for 2022:

• Course Information Sheet, 2022.

• Course Calendar (revised 10/2/22)
  • For historians: Tentative Course Calendar (9/1/22)

• Instructor: Alan H. Guth, guth@ctp.mit.edu .

• Teaching Assistant: Marianne Moore, mamoore@mit.edu .

• Lecture Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:05 a.m. - 12:25 p.m., Room 4-265

• Office Hours:

  Alan Guth:	Mondays, 5:15-6:15 pm, New room starting 10/31/22: 8-320
  Marianne Moore:	Fridays, 1:00-2:00 pm, Room 4-144

• Class Contact List (For Class Members Only)

• Piazza Page: The Piazza page can be accessed at piazza.com/mit/fall2022/8286/home. First, you will need to sign up at piazza.com/mit/fall2022/8286.

• Quiz 1: Wednesday, October 5, 2022

  	COVERAGE: Lecture Notes 1, 2, 3, and the beginning of Lecture Notes 4, though the section on The Horizon Distance; Problem Sets 1, 2, and 3; Weinberg, Chapters 1, 2, and 3; In Ryden, Chapters 1, 2, and 3 have been assigned, and I recommend that you read all three chapters. But only Chapter 2 will be fair game for reading questions on the quiz. (Chapter 1 contains interesting introductory material; Chapter 3 should be treated as an aid to understanding topics discussed in lecture, although some of those topics will be discussed in lecture later.) On Problem Set 3 it said that none of Lecture Notes 4 would be included, so I apologize for that omission. One of the problems on the quiz will be taken verbatim (or at least almost verbatim) from either the homework assignments, or from the starred problems from the Review Problems for Quiz 1. The starred problems are the ones that I recommend that you review most carefully: Problems 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, and 18. The starred problems do not include any reading questions, but parts of the reading questions in the Review Problems may also recur on the upcoming quiz. For the homework problems, extra credit problems are eligible to be the problem used on the quiz.
  	REVIEW SESSION: Sunday, October 2, 2022, 6:00 pm, with Marianne Moore, in our usual classroom, 4-265. It will be open-ended, but expected to end about 7:30 pm. It will be recorded, but you are highly encouraged to attend in person, as Marianne intends the review session to be more aimed at solving problems in small groups rather than a lecturing style.
  	REVIEW PROBLEMS (with formula sheet and solutions): PDF (1 up), or PDF (2 up).
  	QUIZ LOGISTICS: The quiz will take place during the regular class time, 11:05 am to 12:25 pm. The quiz will be closed book, no calculators, no internet, and 80 minutes long. It will take place not in our usual classroom, but instead in Room 4-149.

• Quiz 2: Wednesday, October 5, 2022

  	COVERAGE: Lecture Notes 4, starting with Evolution of a Closed Universe on p. 5, Lecture Notes 5, and Lecture Notes 6 through Relationship between a and T, p. 22. (Note that this about 1 1/2 pages beyond where we reached in class; you're expected to read this on your own.) Problem Sets 4-7. Weinberg, The First Three Minutes, Chapters 4 - 8 and Afterword: Cosmology Since 1977. In Ryden's Introduction to Cosmology, we have read Chapters 4 and Chapter 5 through Section 5.4.1 during this period. These chapters, however, parallel what we have done or will be doing in lecture, so you should take them as an aid to learning the lecture material; there will be no questions explicitly based on these sections from Ryden. The quiz will include, however, Ryden's Chapters 7 (Dark Matter), Chapter 8 (The Cosmic Microwave Background), and Chapter 9 (Nucleosynthesis and the Early Universe), with the exceptions of Sections 8.3 (The Physics of Recombination), 9.2 (Neutrons and Protons), and 9.3 (Deuterium Synthesis). These three sections include detailed calculations of chemical equilibrium, which is a subject to which we will return. As I pointed out in the preamble to Problem Set 6, Eqs. (9.11) and (9.12) are not correct. For now, you should read over these three sections with enough understanding to be able to follow the sections that follow, but there will be no questions on the quiz that are based on these sections. Chapters 4 and 5 of Weinberg's book are packed with numbers; you need not memorize these numbers, but you should be familiar with their orders of magnitude. We will not take off for the spelling of names, as long as they are vaguely recognizable. For dates before 1900, it will be sufficient for you to know when things happened to within 100 years. For dates after 1900, it will be sufficient if you can place events within 10 years.
  	REVIEW SESSION: Sunday, November 6, 2022, 6:00 - 7:30 pm, with Marianne Moore, in our usual classroom, 4-265. Unfortunately it was not recorded, because the MIT Lecture Recording people apparently need more than 3 days notice to turn on the cameras. Marianne's review session notes can be found here.
  	OFFICE HOURS: On Monday, November 7, 2022, Alan Guth will have his regular office hour, 5:15 - 6:15 pm, in Room 8-320. On Tuesday, November 8, Marianne Moore will have a special office hour from 4-5 pm in Room 6C-442 (also called the Cosman Room). To access this room, enter building 6 from the Infinite Corridor on the 3rd or 4th floor, and cross the bridge over Sol LeWitt's "Bars of Color Within Squares" to building 6C. (Marianne will have no office hour on Friday November 11.)
  	REVIEW PROBLEMS (with formula sheet and solutions): PDF (1 up), or PDF (2 up).
  	QUIZ LOGISTICS: The quiz will take place during the regular class time, 11:05 am to 12:25 pm. It will not be in our regular classroom, but instead in Room 50-340 (Walker Memorial). The quiz will be closed book, no calculators, no internet, and 80 minutes long.

• Quiz 3: Wednesday, December 7, 2022

  	COVERAGE: Lecture Notes 6 (pp.~23--end), Lecture Notes 7 Lecture Notes 8, and Notes on Thermal Equilibrium. Material from Lecture Notes 9 will be fair game for reading-type questions --- multiple choice, true/false, or maybe short answer questions --- but you will not be expected to use this material for calculations. Problem Sets 8 and 9; Barbara Ryden, Introduction to Cosmology, Chapter 8 (The Cosmic Microwave Background) and Chapter 9 (Nucleosynthesis and the Early Universe), especially Sections 8.3 (The Physics of Recombination), 9.2 (Neutrons and Protons), and 9.3 (Deuterium Synthesis) --- with the help of Notes on Thermal Equilibrium, you are now expected to understand these sections in detail. Ryden, Chapter 11 (Structure Formation: Gravitational Instability); Alan Guth, Inflation and the New Era of High-Precision Cosmology, https://physics.mit.edu/news/journal/physicsatmit_02_cosmology/ The data quoted in this article about the nonuniformities of the cosmic microwave background radiation has since been superceded by much better data, but the conclusions have not changed. They have only gotten stronger. Like Lecture Notes 9, the material in this article will be fair game for Quiz 3 only in the context of reading-type questions.
  	REVIEW SESSION AND OFFICE HOURS: Monday, December 5, 6:15 pm in Room 8-320, right after Alan's office hour, which is in the same room, starting at 5:15 pm. You can still fill out the Piazza poll ( https://piazza.com/class/l7roppm5yg856n/post/84) to suggest topics to cover at the review session. Marianne will also hold a special office hour on Tuesday December 6, 5:00-6:00 pm, in room 8-316.
  	REVIEW PROBLEMS (with formula sheet and solutions): PDF (1 up), or PDF (2 up).
  	QUIZ LOGISTICS: The quiz will take place during the regular class time, 11:05 am to 12:25 pm. It will not be in our regular classroom, but instead in Room 50-340 (Walker Memorial). The quiz will be closed book, no calculators, no internet, and 80 minutes long.