Description
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS A Student'S Guide To General Relativity by Norman Gray
This compact guide presents the key features of general relativity to support and supplement the presentation in mainstream more comprehensive undergraduate textbooks or as a recap of essentials for graduate students pursuing more advanced studies. It helps students plot a careful path to understanding the core ideas and basics of differential geometry as applied to general relativity without overwhelming them. While the guide doesnt shy away from necessary technicalities it emphasises the essential simplicity of the main physical arguments. Presuming a familiarity with special relativity (with a brief account in an appendix) it describes how general covariance and the equivalence principle motivate Einsteins theory of gravitation. It then introduces differential geometry and the covariant derivative as the mathematical technology which allows us to understand Einsteins equations of general relativity. The book is supported by numerous worked exampled and problems and important applications of general relativity are described in an appendix.