General Relativity step by step: A first course in General Relativity

This is an ideal book for someone who has seen the eponymous Einstein field equations countless times and has always been curious to understand them: Guv + Λguv = 8πG/c^4 Tuv You’ve probably heard this a million times: On the right is the stress energy tensor Tuv. This describes what is in space-time (matter, energy, pressure, etc.). On the left is the Einstein tensor Guv. This describes the shape – its curvature – that space-time assumes as a result of what is described in Tuv. But how do we talk about the shape of space if the highest level of math education you have is high school calculus? And in particular, how do we do that if you took calculus decades ago? That’s where this book shines. This book takes the reader through all the required math, step by step, until the reader understands the Einstein field equations well enough to solve two relatively simple GR problems: 1. The deflection of a beam of light as it just grazes the sun. 2. The acceleration due to gravity on earth (the familiar 32 feet/s^2). This book also answers a question I’ve always wondered about: Why 8πG/c^4? Where does this constant come from? Recall that G is the Newtonian gravitational constant, the same G that appears in Newton’s equation for gravity: F = GMm/d^2 This book explains, in great detail, where this constant comes from and derives it. If you are curious enough about General Relativity to want to understand the math and have had high school calculus sometime in your life, this book is for you. About the pictures: One picture shows the beginning of the derivation of the constant 8πG/c^4. The other picture, well into the book from Chapter 10, shows the tedious evaluation of an expression. Note the use of different colors to identify different parts of the expansion of various terms and the use of strike throughs to indicate which pairs of terms mutually cancel each other. This approach allows the reader to follow, without missing a single step, a complete evaluation of an expression. There are no "and then a miracle occurs" moments in this book.

L'auteur ne maîtrise pas le sujet. Les schémas sont faux pour beaucoup d'entre eux. Aucune rigueur dans les notations. Le crash pressenti à maintes reprises intervient p 113 et au-delà. A fuir.

Brilliant

Easy peasy guide to GR

En mi caso, que no soy ni físico ni matemático, el comprar este tipo de libros es por encontrar esos puntos de vista originales (distintos de los textos universitarios) que permiten comprender lo que antes no se entendía (Esa sensación de por fin tienen sentido los símbolos de Christoffel y cosas por el estilo). Michael Cole da muchas pinceladas novedosas para mí (destaca la derivación detallada del tensor de Riemann). Por desgracia el territorio abarcado es demasiado grande y quedan muchos puntos que te gustaría que el autor desarrollase. Por eso la puntuación sería de 4 estrellas. Curiosamente, nada más empezar la lectura, noté el mismo tipo de papel, la misma amplitud de espacios, el cuidado en la ausencia de errores tipográficos, el poco peso en relación al tamaño del libro, la encuadernación firme…etc. de los dos volúmenes de Ville Hirvonen que había leído hace poco. Miré la editorial y era la misma para los tres: Amazon Italia Logística (Torrazza Piemonte (TO). Italy). Así que la quinta estrella de la valoración es por su buen trabajo en la realización del libro.