Differential Geometry Student Meetings

In light of the recent events involving the global spread of COVID-19, on March 14 president Turpin has announced that all classes on Monday, March 16, are to be suspended, and future classes will be moved to “remote delivery.” As you all know, our student meetings heavily rely on the direct interaction, and for that reason the remaining meetings have been cancelled.

last updated: 11.52 AM, Mar 14, 2020

what	Students with some prior exposure to special relativity and general relativity meet once a week to systematically discuss topics in differential geometry. Additional topics that can be discussed can be found further below under Suggestions for further meetings. Input welcome!
when	weekly, 1.00pm, 4-196 CCIS
contact	Jens Boos (boos@ualberta.ca), Mason Protter (protter@ualberta.ca)
URL	http://www.spintwo.net/Courses/Differential-Geometry-Student-Meetings/

Past meetings

2020-01-15: overview and introduction [01]
2020-01-20: vectors, covectors, and tensors [01]
2020-01-27: tensors and coordinates [01]
2020-02-03: the metric tensor [01]
2020-02-10: the covariant derivative [01]
2020-02-17: no meeting (reading week)
2020-02-24: an intuitive explanation of the covariant derivative [01, 02, 03]
2020-03-02: hyperbolic space 1: embedding in Euclidean space, geodesics 01
2020-03-09: hyperbolic space 2: curvature and parallel transport 01
2020-03-16: no meeting
2020-03-23: no meeting
2020-03-30: no meeting
2020-04-06: no meeting

Suggestions for further meetings

Tensor calculus 101
Vectors and differential forms
Covariant derivatives
2D surfaces
Differential forms in gauge theory
Lorentz-valued differential forms in gravity theory
Thermodynamics and differential forms
Fiber bundles
...

Literature

T. Frankel, The Geometry of Physics: An Introduction
M. Nakahara, Geometry, Topology, and Physics
R. Penrose, Road to Reality (chapters 12, 13, 14)
U. Leonhardt and T. Philbin, Geometry and Light (chapter 3)
TBA