Gravitation

by John Archibald Wheeler, Kip S Thorne, Charles W. Misner, et al.

Book Overview

First published in 1973, Gravitation is a landmark graduate-level textbook that presents Einstein's general theory of relativity and offers a rigorous, full-year course on the physics of gravitation. Upon publication, Science called it "a pedagogic masterpiece," and it has since become a classic, considered essential reading for every serious student and researcher in the field of relativity. This authoritative text has shaped the...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691177791
• ISBN13: 9780691177793
• Release Date: October 2017
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 1336 Pages
• Weight: 6.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.6" x 8.4" x 10.2"

Customer Reviews

The Bible of gravitational physics

By size and content, this book ranks as one of the largest in physics . Not only does it give an excellent discussion of all of the concepts in gravitational physics, but it gives clear presentations of the relevant mathematics, not hesitating at all to employ useful diagrams and pictures. Truly a classic, it is a work that is sure to be read by future generations of students in gravitational physics. I can still remember the excitement I felt when picking the book up for the first time. The authors are giants in the field, and it is great that they chose to take the time to write such an excellent book. It is readily apparent that they care a great deal about what the reader will take away after reading such a large book, as the presentation is always crystal clear and a great joy to read. Space prohibits a thorough review, so I will instead highlight the parts of the book that I found particularly exceptional: 1. The example of how coordinate singularities arise: the "cells of the egg crate" squashed to zero volume. 2. The beautiful illustration of the Roll-Krotkov-Dicke experiment. 3. The "physics demo" of a local inertial frame of reference (it is not very difficult to construct this demonstration for actual use in a classroom). 4. The presentation of a 2-form as a honeycomb of tubes with a sense of circulation. Such an explanation is lacking in the general mathematical literature. 5. The flying ring demonstration illustrating Faraday stresses. This demonstration is done very often in physics classes, and is simple to set up. 6. The excellent discussion (with illustrations) of the covariant derivative and the Schild ladder construction. 7. The presentation of parallel transport around a closed curve. 8. The treatment of Riemann normal coordinates. These are typically presented in a purely formal way in most texts on general relativity, ignoring their status as providing a local inertial frame in curved spacetime. 9. The (philosophical) discussion on the principal of general covariance in the context of Newtonian gravity in tensorial form. 10. The illustration, with accompanying discussion, on a situation where two events can be connected by more than one geodesic. The authors mention the relation of this example to the Morse theory of critical points. 11. The discussion of the Bianchi identities and the topological result on the boundary of a boundary being empty. 12. The discussion on the gravity gradiometer. 13. The exceptional discussion on six routes to the Einstein field equation. 14. The variational principle and the initial value problem in the Einstein equation. 15. The connection between the Gauss-Weingarten equations and extrinsic curvature. 16. The ADm formulation of the dynamics of geometry. 17. The discussion on Mach's principle. 18. The radial oscillations of a Newtonian star. 19. The Hamilton-Jacobi description of motion and its employment in analyzing the central force problem. 20. The effect of the value of the cosmological c

Excellent introduction, good overview on applications

This book can be divided into three logical parts. The first part includes an overview of 4 dimensional physics (spacetime physics, chapter 1), an introduction to special relativity (physics in flat spacetime, chapters 2 to 7), an introduction to the tensor calculus (the mathematics of curved spacetime, chapters 8 to 15) and describes in detail Einstein's general theory of relativity (Einstein's geometric theory of relativity, chapters 16 to 22). This first part is the best introduction to the theory of relativity I have ever read. The mathematics is introduced in a very comprehensive manner, there are lots of exercises where the reader can get used to the tensor calculus. The physical explanations are just brilliant and what is more important general relativity is introduced in the manner Einstein itself viewed it: as a geometric representation of gravity! Other books on this subject formulate general relativity only algebraically (like quantum theory) but this hides the importance of the idea that all gravitational effects can be extracted from the geometry of spacetime. The algebraic formulation may be regarded as more modern by some authors, it must be said however that no algebraic formulation managed to give more physical insight. The algebraic treatment tries to unify the view of general relativity and quantum field theory, but the physical discrepancies between the two theories remain unsolved.The second part starts with the application of general relativity to stars (stars and relativity, chapters 23 to 26), goes on to the universe (the universe, chapters 27-30) and to black holes (gravitational collapse and black holes, chapters 31 to 34), and describes finally gravitational waves (gravitational waves, chapters 35 to 37) and experimental methods (experimental tests of general relativity, chapters 38 to 40).This second part is a good overview, but many details of the computations of the applications are not shown. For the readers interrested in the details the two volume book by Zel'dovich and Novikov "Stars and Relativity"/"The Structure and Evolution of the Universe" is much better (but also much longer).The third part finally describes the frontiers of general relativity (frontiers, chapters 41 to 44). Like part two it gives a good overview not showing many computational details.

Best textbook I've ever seen -- in ANY subject!

Yes, it's so massive you can measure it's gravitational field. Yes, people refer to it as "the phonebook." But all joking aside, as an undergraduate who is very curious about general relativity, I must say that this textbook has done more for me than any other. I've gotten occational help from other books (Wald, Weinberg, etc.) but this is the one that I really LERN from. There's more physical insight in this book than any I've yet seen, and the reading is truly enjoyable. One great thing is the treatment of tensors. I knew next to nothing about tensors coming into the book, but the book assumes very little initial knowledge and teaches you the needed math as you go along. This book is truly a model for anyone who wants to write a textbook. Nothing I've seen even comes close.

This is a book of IDEAS

This volume is absolutely neccesary for any serious student of gravitational physics. Although their are sections suitable for an upper division undergrad, this is a tome for the graduate student in Physics. The mathematical expertise required for the advanced Track-2 portions of the book are predominently graduate level and above. However, it is those very sections where the exotic topics of black-hole thermodynamics and quantum cosmology are addressed in all their splendor. There are areas of interest to students of math such as the introduction of differential forms and tensor index-slinging. All students of Physics should have at least cracked the cover of this book once before they receive their B.Sci. This is a thorough if dated (1975) exposition that deserves a place along side Peeble's 'COSMOLOGY' and Dirac's 'QUANTUM MECHANICS' in a list of 'must have' volumes for any Physicist (even those far removed from general relativity). With the possible exception of S. Hawkings, Misner, Thorne and Wheeler show their collective expertise on GTR with rigor and style. Even the typsetting, diagrams and the liberal use of explanitory boxes all serve to give the work a feel of completion. It is no wonder that in the physics literature it is often cited simply as MTW.