Product Description

General relativity has become one of the central pillars of theoretical physics, with important applications in both astrophysics and high-energy particle physics, and no modern theoretical physicist’s education should be regarded as complete without some study of the subject. This textbook, based on the author’s own undergraduate teaching, develops general relativity and its associated mathematics from a minimum of prerequisites, leading to a physical understanding of the theory in some depth. It reinforces this understanding by making a detailed study of the theory’s most important applications - neutron stars, black holes, gravitational waves, and cosmology - using the most up-to-date astronomical developments. The book is suitable for a one-year course for beginning graduate students or for undergraduates in physics who have studied special relativity, vector calculus, and electrostatics. Graduate students should be able to use the book selectively for half-year courses.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #372254 in Books
• Published on: 1985-01-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 392 pages

Review
"Schutz has such mastery of the material that it soon becomes clear that one is in authoritative hands, and topics are selected and developed only to a point where they prove adequate for future needs." The Times Higher Education Supplement

"...ought to inspire more physicists and astronomers to teach--and learn--the other half of the 20th century's revolution in physics." Foundations of Physics

"The book is a goldmine of cleverly constructed problems and exercises (and solutions!)..." Nature

About the Author
Bernard Schutz has done research and teaching in general relativity and especially its applications in astronomy since 1970. He is an author of more than 170 publications, including three highly-regarded books published by Cambridge University Press: Geometrical Methods of Mathematical Physics, A First Course in General Relativity and Gravity From the Ground Up. Schutz currently specialises in gravitational wave research, studying the theory of potential sources and designing new methods for analysing the data from current and planned detectors. He is a member of most of the current large-scale gravitational wave projects: GEO600 (operated by the AEI), LIGO and LISA. Schutz is a Director of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, also known as the Albert Einstein Institute (AEI), in Potsdam, Germany. He holds a part-time chair in Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University, Wales, as well as honorary professorships at Potsdam and Hanover universities in Germany. Born and educated in the USA, he taught physics and astronomy for twenty years at Cardiff before moving to Germany. In 1998 he founded the open-access online journal Living Reviews in Relativity. In 2006 he was awarded the Amaldi Gold Medal of the Italian Society for Gravitation (SIGRAV). He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the Institute of Physics, and a member of the German Academy of Natural Sciences Leopoldina and of the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences Uppsala.

Customer Reviews

Fantastically graspable explanation
This book is great. With reasonable knowledge of linear algebra and vector analysis I was able to quickly grasp the concepts of some of the mathematics behind Special and General Relativity. The author seems to do a near perfect job at explaining the theory in a way that seems to flow beautifully from one concept to the other without leaving you with too many unanswered questions. The mathematics behind Einstein's theories can be very subtle at times. I am studying the mathematics of Special and General relativity for a hobby (it's like doing a big puzzle. A bit of a crude analogy, but alright) , and am by no means a physicist as such. If you have the right background (Mine being Computer Science, Computer Graphics), and you are willing to spend a lot of thought on the matter, you will be able to follow this text, and be a considerably more knowledgeable person at the end.

An Accessible Introduction To GR
This book approaches the idea of curvature in a gentle way. The introductory chapters are quite accessible to a student with limited mathematical backround. I found the combination of this book, Schutz's 'Geometrical Methods of Mathematical Physics' and Foster and Nightingale's 'First Course in GR' as suitable preparation for more weighty tomes such as Misner Thorne and Wheeler's 'Gravitation'.

The greatest approach of General Relativity for dummies
I think this is an obligated reference for undergraduate beginners in General Relativity. Almost all the mathematical requirements are included, but it would be the best book if it also treated the Hilbert action and the variational deduction of Einstein's field equation. I suggest buying the other Schut's title "Geometrical Methods for Mathematical Physics" which supplies more mathematical background.