Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: flr on 28/03/2013 03:05:47

Title: which textbook on relativity?
Post by: flr on 28/03/2013 03:05:47

 Which textbook on special and general relativity would you recommend to an undergraduate student as a starting point to study relativity?

Title: Re: which textbook on relativity?
Post by: Pmb on 28/03/2013 03:46:16

That depends on your math background and how hard you're willing to work. A nice SR text is Taylor and Wheeler's text Spacetime Physics and for GR Exploring Black Holes. I highly recommend Gravity from the Ground Up by Bernhard F. Schutz. He also has a supurb book on GR called A first course in general relativity[/i] but you need to know SR first. I also like Ohanian's SR text.

There is also some great online lectures on GR at http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/9712019

You can also learn SR and GR from my website (I hope). See http://home.comcast.net/~peter.m.brown/

I welcome all comments and suggestions.

Title: Re: which textbook on relativity?
Post by: Bill S on 28/03/2013 14:49:34

Pete, I tried following your link and got:  "Sorry, the GeoCities web site you were trying to reach is no longer available."

Am I doing something wrong?

Title: Re: which textbook on relativity?
Post by: Pmb on 28/03/2013 16:31:28

Quote from: Bill S on 28/03/2013 14:49:34

Pete, I tried following your link and got:  "Sorry, the GeoCities web site you were trying to reach is no longer available."

Am I doing something wrong?

No. It was an old file which was there by mistake. I fixed it. Try it now.

Title: Re: which textbook on relativity?
Post by: yor_on on 29/03/2013 10:09:56

'Einstein's gravitational field' was a very nice read Pete. And finally you fixed your site so all can find it, also meet geoCityies complaining before, but now it's accessible.