Space-Time Structure (Cambridge Science Classics) by Erwin Schrödinger (PDF)

Description

Reprint of a classical book first published in 1950. This lucid and profound exposition of Einstein’s 1915 theory of gravitation is essential reading.

User’s Reviews

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

⭐I have read several of E. Schrodinger’s works and have enjoyed them immensely. They have expanded my mind and have expanded my understanding of life by giving me a different perspective and for this I am thankful to have read his books. This particular book requires an understanding of calculus in order to even begin to grasp. It’s a masterpiece and way ahead of it’s time, but it is by no means an easy, light read and the calculations are so complicated that it may not be enjoyable to all. Overall I looked forward to reading this book each night because it put me in a really good place and I could tell it was expanding my mind in real time. Go for it if you enjoy nonfiction and science.

⭐This book presents the results of Schroedinger’s work in Ireland in which he explored the manifold of possibilities for unified field theories along the general lines pursued by Einstein. The main accomplishment was in constructing such a theory from just the connection, with metric derived as a consequence, using no ad hoc assumptions. I extended this work in my 1977 Master’s thesis. While this kind of theory has gone out of style, it is still an exciting pursuit and Schroedinger’s writing is clear and compelling.

⭐This great book is useless on my iPhone or paperwhite because you cannot read the equations.

⭐The book (paperback, Cambridge Science Classics series, Cambridge University Press) arrived rapidly and in perfect conditions.It was written by Schrödinger in the last part of his life. It is clear, precise and penetrating as usual with Schrödinger. It is slim, amounting to slightly more than 100 pages.It is important to stress that it is not a book on General Relativity, but a book on the mathematical structures (differential geometry) used in General Relativity (with a last chapter on possible generalizations thereof). For example, solutions to Einstein’s equations are not discussed. As far as GR is concerned, the farthest the book goes is to derive Einstein’s equations.The presentation adopts a different approach with respect to the “geometric” approach to tensors and covariant derivatives, which has become standard nowadays (for an example of the latter approach see Carroll’s book “Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity”). So I would not recommend Schrödinger book as the only and primary source for a student learning General Relativity for the first time.On the other hand, I would strongly recommend it to be studied in parallel with a “standard approach” book, or for those who already have a background in General Relativity.The strongest point, beside clarity, is that the concepts of affine and metric structure are clearly distinguished one from the other, and the affine structure is studied first. This is arguably more natural since the affine structure is more general than the metric one. In fact the book starts from general concepts and then progressively specializes them, starting with “unconnected manifolds” (differentiable manifolds without a connection), then adding a connection, and then specializing the connection to a metric-compatible one. This is very useful if one wishes to keep an open mind about how to generalize the description.I strongly recommend the chapter on Conservation Laws and Variational Principles, extremely lucid and with details which it is hard to find (if at all) in other books.

⭐Bought as a present recipient was very pleased.

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