Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing!, 28 Jul 1998
By A Customer
The world would be less beautiful if this book didn't exist. What a remarkable feat! The sequence that leads from the very basic concept of spacetime to the computation of the components of Riemann tensor by using forms and the Cartan equations is unparalleled. A lot of mathematical formulas follow from simple reasoning and ... drawings! The introduction of Schild's ladder to motivate the axioms for a (torsionless) connection is very clever. The introduction of curvature by means of geodesic deviation is very intuitive. The derivation of the expression for the geodesic deviation (and, consequently, of the expression for the Riemann tensor) is, again, completely intuitive. The chapter on spinors is very beautiful and useful. Still, I would never recommend this book for a beginner. For it is absolutely non-linear. I have been told that this corresponds to the ideas of Wheeler's concerning learning. Sometimes an argument at chapter 4 (say) depends on something that is intr! oduced in chapter 8. Also, the three tracks (first, second and boxes)interfere all the time, requiring much discipline from the reader. If, however, you already learned the basics (for instance, in Landau, Lifshitz), so that you know what you are looking for, "Gravitation" is unbeatable, of a class apart. I've seen mathematicians adopting the language introduced by them to explain tensors: a slot for each argument of the multilinear machine! Last, not the least, the Index and the References are of the highest quality. This shows respect for the readers. Drs. Misner, Thorne and Wheeler are to be congratulated.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The handbook of General Relativity, 20 May 2001
I recognise "Gravitation" is not the best mathematical exposition of General Relativity, it is also 27 years old. Nevertheless, it is the best reference book if it goes with other more elementary texts, like B.Schutz, or with other approach, like Weinberg. "Gravitation" is huge, great, comprehensive, practically complete and has glossy paper. It must be in every theoretical physicist assortment. I recommend it not for beginners, but for those who have learnt at least a little about Relativity and Differential Geometry. It treats with: - Review of Special Relativity - Flat elementary Differential Geometry. - Electromagnetism and Differential forms. - The Stress-Energy tensor. - Newtonian gravity. - Differential and Riemannian Geometry (a special approach for physicists). - Equivalence principle and field equation. - Variational principles. - Classical Physics in curved spacetimes. - Relativistic stars. - Cosmology - Schwarzschild solution and black holes. - Global techniques and singularities (a little, for this I recommend Wald's book). - Gravitational waves. - Experimental tests. - Mathematical frontiers.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gravi what?, 21 May 2009
The first few things you need to know about this book:
1) That it is huge (door stop, prop chairs and tables size)!!!
2) This book is in my humble opinion is the most detailed and powerful book on gravitation i have ever had the privilege of "reading". (the bible of gravity)
3) Treated this book as an investment.
I was introduced to this book at the beginning of my undergraduate degree. I spent most of the time just starring at it and looking at how well laid out everything inside appeared to be. It took me about 2 years to open the book and read something from it, this is because its size makes it very daunting to open and read.
I put the words reading in quotes above because no one reads the whole book; it may take years to learn everything this book has to offer on the subject. However if you treat it like a reference book you will never be disappointed. This book does require some advanced mathematical knowledge like tensor calculus, matrix algebra.
If you are beginner learning relativity you would be better off buying a beginner text on the subject like Rindler. If you are doing advanced work on the subject this is a MUST BUY. Worst come to worst if you don't like it you can always use it for toilet paper.
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