Textbook

Zwiebach, Barton. A First Course in String Theory. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN: 0521831431. The book can be ordered online from the publisher.

Homework

There will be weekly homework, generally made available on Mondays and due the next Monday at 5 pm.

Tests

There will be two tests. The first will be a one-hour test and will be one day after lecture 12. The second will be a 90-minute test two days after lecture 23 during lecture time. There will be no final exam.

Course Project

The Course Project is due in lecture 25 (the last day of class). The project must be typeset in LaTeX and a hard copy must be turned in at the end of the lecture (LaTeX files and eps files must be e-mailed to the Professor and the TA).

The projects consist of solving and producing well-written, crisp solutions (with figures, if appropriate), for all the relevant Quick Calculations and end-of-chapter problems.

Here are the choices of projects:

• Branes and the Standard Model
  Section 14.5 (Quick Calculations and problem 14.10)
  Sections 15.5 - End of chapter (Quick Calculations and problems 15.8, 15.9, and 15.10)
  
  
• String Thermodynamics and Black Holes
  Chapter 16: All Quick Calculations and all problems
  
  
• Covariant String Quantization
  Chapter 21: All Quick Calculations and all problems
  
  
• String Interactions and Riemann Surfaces
  Chapter 22: All Quick Calculations and all problems

Grading

The course will be graded on the following basis: