A Short Course in General Relativity 3rd Edition by James A. Foster (PDF)

Description

Suitable for a one-semester course in general relativity for senior undergraduates or beginning graduate students, this text clarifies the mathematical aspects of Einstein’s theory of relativity without sacrificing physical understanding.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐There are quite a few good introductory books on General Relativity (GR). Depending on the background of the reader, one book may serve him/her better than another. Foster & Nightingale’s book is, in my opinion, one of the best introductions to GR for students in the last year of their B. Sc. Degree in Physics at a good University. If you have already taken all the required Math courses (including vector calculus), a course on Classical Mechanics (at the level of Goldstein), a course on Electromagnetism (at the level of Jackson) and a course on Modern Physics – then Foster & Nightingale’s book is the best introduction to GR for you. However, one does not learn GR from one book and I would recommend that one should take a break from time to time and read or browse from other books too.Foster & Nightingale have an original and consistent approach throughout the book: move as fast as possible to Einstein’s final equation in a way that makes you feel comfortable that you learned from the book a basic mathematical and physical understanding of the meaning of each of the terms in the equation. They do this in the first three chapters by taking you first from the known world of 3D Euclidean space, and then by a reasonable leap of faith generalizing these equations to the curved 4D spacetime of GR. Then they go back from the equations of GR to our 3D Euclidean space by showing that, with appropriate approximations, the classical Newtonian equation F=ma is retrieved, where F is the gravitational Newtonian force generated by an arbitrary distribution of mass. Going back and forth, in a variety of examples, between 3D Euclidean geometry and 4D GR spacetime, is a great pedagogical tool that helps include all the basics of GR and some more in the mere 200 pages of the book (in its 2nd edition), which is quite a feat that I deeply admire. Do not misunderstand: this is not a novel and the reader will have to work a lot, but the authors took pains in doing all the mathematical derivations in great detail without missing any reasonable step and without resorting to the hateful and recurrent statement “it can be shown …” which can be found in other books (explicitly or not and, unfortunately, many times the latter). From Chapter 4 and on in the book (and in other later courses you might take in the future) you may use Einstein’s equation of GR as the starting point for further studies. For additional comments, you can go to the ResearchGate website and download my paper “Book Review: ‘A Short Course in General Relativity’ by Foster and Nightingale’ “Jaime E. Kardontchik, PhDSunnyvale, California

⭐I have a degree in physics from a small midwestern university including a year of grad study. Problem is that was in 1987. I have since been working in software engineering and hardly touched the stuff. I have always been facinated with General Relativity but never had the opportunity or the time to fulfill that desire… Till I got hold of this book. I have never seen a more elegantly written physics text… period. I should say, I had very little exposure to tensors prior to studying this book. That didn’t matter. I was in the Einstein field equations after a little over a week of self study! Good homework problems (with solutions at the back if you need it). The presentation of covariant and contravariant vector components is second to none. That said, being such a short book there is some detail missing. I would like to have had a better backgroung on Christoffel coefficents for example, among a few other issues but they are minor. I have since been picking through Schutz to fill in the gaps in the details since I definitly intend to continue my study of this subject. This book however is much better written than schutz, is about the same level and subjects are covered in roughly the same order (except special relativity with tensors is covered in an appendix at the back of the book). I definitly recomend Schutz. It’s a very good intro to general relativity, BUT… READ THIS FIRST!!FOLLOWUP TO PREVIOUS REVIEW MADE ABOUT A MONTH AGO:In the review I gave above I continue to stand by. The thing I wish to change is, I recomended “A first Course in General Relativity” by Schutz as a follow on to this book. I no longer agree with that statement. I went back to Schutz and found it way too wordy, unfocused and frankly useless. I also think I understand GR better than I would have with Schutz. I have sinced moved on to “Gravitation and Cosmology” by Steven Weinberg which I am finding completely accessable, thoroughly enjoyable and very well written. I found “A Short Course in General Relativity” prepared me just fine as it is. So…. Now I say, forget Schutz, study this instead, then move on.

⭐Exceptional organization and choice of just the topics necessary to get to Einstein’s field equations and several of the solutions. All terminology is carefully explained, and the book has zero typo’s, which is unheard of. Explanations for every topic are concise so that the topics are very readable with just enough information for reader to “fill in the gaps”. Extended steps that would muddy the main message are relegated to the exercises, and answers along with hints or full explanations are given for every exercise. Really lengthy side topics are put into appendices that are explained in the same, careful style as the main text.

⭐This is an excellent book. The writing style is clear and the authors bridge Newtonian gravitation, special relativity and general relativity. The authors concentrate on insights motivated from classical physics and then using special cases, linearizations or simplified assumptions it demonstrates the Newtonian approach in the limit and differences from general relativity. There is also a focus on the testable predictions from general relativity. This is amplified understanding for me. The authors/ concentrate on developing concepts sufficient to illustrate or demonstrate a feature of relativity: from Euclidean space to curvilinear coordinates, metrics, tensors, manifolds and tensor fields. This allows the book to be concise. The book has a number of appendices dealing with special relativity, tensors and manifolds.The book’s focus is not Mathematics or rigor but it allowed me insights into Mathematical concepts despite (or perhaps because of) its utilitarian approach: the Mathematics to serve understanding General Relativity.This book provided me the clearest, broadest and most coherent insight into General Relativity that I have read.

⭐”A Short Course in General Relativity” is an ideal textbook for the student interested in the mathematical aspects as well as the physical understanding of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The text is very accessible if you have a working knowledge of vector analysis and linear algebra.

⭐It is not one of the classics. It is not perfect. It does not include everything there is to say about GR. It does not have the most rigorous mathematical approach to the topic, nor does it have the most enlightening conceptual presentation.But what it does brilliantly is provide a concise introduction to the subject in an accessible manner that lends itself quite well for self-study. I would recommend it as a preparatory reading for any student taking a senior-year undergraduate course in GR and its presentation will even work for the rare junior-level course.

⭐Die anderen 5-Sterne Rezensionen kann ich nur bestätigen. Ich betreibe Allgemeine Relativitätstheorie als Hobby und finde dieses Buch sehr gut zum Lernen und um Übungsaufgaben zu lösen. In kurzer und prägnanter Form werden die wesentlichen Inhalte der Theorie aufgezeigt. Natürlich ist es nicht möglich, in diesem “Short cource” alle Eigenschaften zu erwähnen. Aber gerade für den Einstieg in die Theorie ist es sehr empfehlenswert.Dr. Bernd Sonne

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