Modern General Relativity: Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, and Cosmology

by Mike Guidry

Einstein's general theory of relativity is widely considered to be one of the most elegant and successful scientific theories ever developed, and it is increasingly being taught in a simplified form at advanced undergraduate level within both physics and mathematics departments. Due to the increasing interest in gravitational physics, in both the academic and the public sphere, driven largely by widely-publicised developments such as the recent observations of gravitational waves, general relativity is also one of the most popular scientific topics pursued through self-study. Modern General Relativity introduces the reader to the general theory of relativity using an example-based approach, before describing some of its most important applications in cosmology and astrophysics, such as gamma-ray bursts, neutron stars, black holes, and gravitational waves. With hundreds of worked examples, explanatory boxes, and end-of-chapter problems, this textbook provides a solid foundation for understanding one of the towering achievements of twentieth-century physics.

Genres: Physics, Mathematics

612 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 3, 2019

Reviews

[Nick Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

an outstanding primer on GR, accessible even to dumb CS guys like me. i do get the feeling that this book wouldn't necessarily prepare one for solving test problems -- that stuff tends to be heavily reliant on the nebulous (pun unintended) collection of weirdo mathematical techniques that only physics people learn, fuck a bunch of special functions -- but i *do* now feel more qualified to read (if not generate) research papers and results on GR, particularly gravitational waves (the coverage of gravwaves is superior IMHO to either MTW or Wald, obviously benefiting from recent results at LIGO, Virgo, and BICEP2), and also now have a much firmer grip on the FLRW metric.

unrelated: the other day it occurred to me that the second and third generation of quarks and leptons are perhaps manifestations of cache misses on that computer which generates the universe. think about it for a minute. it makes more sense than you think.