Product Description
There is little doubt that Einstein’s theory of relativity captures the imagination. It is unrivalled in forming the basis of the way we view the universe and the many surprises that the theory has in store — the characteristics of black holes, the prospect of detecting gravitational waves, and the sheer scope and profundity of current cosmology excite all students of relativity. The aim of this textbook is to provide students with a sound mathematical introduction… More >>
Introducing Einstein’s Relativity
Tags: aim, black holes, cosmology, einstein s theory of relativity, gravitational waves, introducing einstein, mathematical introduction, profundity, sheer scope, theory of relativity
#1 by Anonymous on June 29, 2010 - 7:44 pm
D’Inverno provides a very solid introduction to the general theory of relativity, starting with a short review of the special theory and moving through tensor calculus, the field equations, and some applications. One caution: the approach is entirely coordinate-based, so people wishing to get a full picture of general relativity may wish to supplement it with a more modern treatment, such as Wald or Hawking and Ellis.
Rating: 4 / 5
#2 by David McMahon on June 29, 2010 - 8:38 pm
This was one of the books assigned when I took general relativity in college. I found several of the chapters very enjoyable to read. D’Inverno does a great job getting into some of the fascinating physics that lies behind general relativity and its development, like Mach’s principles and a great discussion of the equivalence principle. Much of the book is devoted to teaching you the mathematics, and it does so in a good fashion. He has two nice chapters on tensors with homework problems that are doable. One drawback was the book didn’t have anything on Cartan’s equations or discuss one forms (although he talks about contravariant and covariant vectors). The first half of the book is better than the second half, I found his chapters on special relativity excellent but felt his chapters on black holes and gravity waves were a bit lacking. In any case, I recommend it. Try beefing up your education by reading it along with Schutz so you get some exposure to one forms and all that.
Rating: 4 / 5
#3 by Majdi Amro on June 29, 2010 - 9:21 pm
This is an excellent introduction to general relativity and related topics. The best thing about this book is the very easy presentation of basic differential geometry used in the theory, and the large number of problems and solutions at the end of each chapter. The book is self-contained and very readable. I advise any beginner in this subject to start with this book.
Rating: 5 / 5
#4 by Patrick Van Esch on June 29, 2010 - 11:52 pm
This is about the best introduction to General Relativity that
I’ve ever seen. It introduces just (and very clearly) all
the mathematical tools you need, clearly puts the basis of the
theory in the exposed formalism (tensor calculus) and then
applies it to quite a lot of interesting physical problems.
After a few missed starts, it was the book that really got me
into General Relativity ; once you’ve gone through it you wonder
why you were having difficulties before.
Rating: 5 / 5
#5 by Sean Leckey on June 30, 2010 - 12:47 am
There are far too many books written on relativity, black holes and cosmology. Of these books, the best (e.g. Hawking and Ellis, Wald, Stewart) can be studied with minimal prerequisites and you should walk away with a good grasp of the issues, problems and results.
However if you want to have more than a coffee shop knowledge of relativity you should begin with something that provides examples and problems you can churn out yourself. D’Inverno provides these. He puts down no result that you can’t check for yourself with nothing more than basic calculus and some intuition.
From this book you can then, after perhaps studying something beyond basic calculus, fruitfully study the above classics.
Rating: 5 / 5