Comments on: Five Books on Relativity and Cosmology

By: Balance Scales

Balance Scales — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 06:17:02 +0000

The Black Hole War is the best of the bunch…loved it.

By: Five Books and Relativity and Cosmology » JasonJackson.com

Five Books and Relativity and Cosmology » JasonJackson.com — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 00:23:35 +0000

[...] various subject matter experts to recommend five books in their subject. Carroll participated, recommending five books on Cosmology and Relativity. I found his list very interesting as it included a couple [...]

By: Cragg

Cragg — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:21:17 +0000

As a non-scientist, or perhaps I should say a “wish I would-a been”, I am fortunate to have read all seven above, and can only say that they are and will forever be classics in bringing the workings of nature to a general population of people who enjoy thinking. In their individual manner, they all tell us how we humans have thought about, think now about, and imagine new ways at getting to a deeper truth.

By: Andy Lawrence on Books about Astronomy and People | Cosmic Variance | Theoretical Physics

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:34:41 +0000

[...] by night, hasparticipated in a Five Books interview at The Browser. You’ll remember thatI did one where I picked five books about relativity and cosmology. Most ofthe other interviewees (and they [...]

By: Andy Lawrence on Books about Astronomy and People | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:51:42 +0000

[...] by night, has participated in a Five Books interview at The Browser. You’ll remember that I did one where I picked five books about relativity and cosmology. Most of the other interviewees (and they [...]

By: Tom Kaiser

Tom Kaiser — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 19:45:13 +0000

Even though it’s now more than 40 years old, “Gravitation” by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler deserves to be on the list, I think.

By: Tintin

Tintin — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 01:31:00 +0000

I would recommend Jean-Pierre Luminet’s “L’univers chiffoné,” recently, and ably translated into English as “The Wraparound Universe” (2008). Luminet is a leading expert in Cosmology and in the new field of Cosmic Topology…and a published poet.

By: Andy Fleming

Andy Fleming — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 21:49:56 +0000

The only book I have read here Sean is your From Eternity to Here, and I thought it was very interesting and understandable for this particular lay person! I did try to read Penrose’s Road to Reality and I’m afraid I didn’t get very far having a humanities degree. I’m sure that someone with an academic training in another science discipline, especially maths would find Penrose much more understandable.

I found Adams and Laughlin’s ‘Five Ages of the Universe’ was an exellent introduction to cosmology for a lay person as is Ferris’s ‘The Red Limit: The Search for the Edge of the Universe’ and ‘The Whole Shebang’.

By: Chris J.

Chris J. — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 13:42:41 +0000

@ Sili

MTW’s section on forms and tensors is excellent as well. Reading it was actually the first time that I could picture what a differential form was and how it acted on a vector. Forms are “planes” and however many times the vector “pierces” the plane is the real number you get out. Although, I’m pretty sure MTW uses bongs of a bell as an analogy.

By the way, a good science fiction book dealing with GR is Greg Egan’s Incandescence. It’s about a group of aliens who figure out the geometry of their orbit around a black hole, from inside their planet by doing experiments with weights. It’s actually more exciting than it sounds!

By: Shantanu

Shantanu — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 03:54:10 +0000

Sean, you missed some other classics
o http://www.amazon.com/Was-Einstein-Right-2nd-Relativity/dp/0465090869

o http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Einstein-Code-Relativity-Physics/dp/0226519511
Its about discovery of Kerr solution and this is the onlly book which discusses how this tour de force solution was discovered.

By: Sili

Sili — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 23:26:29 +0000

Thanks, Chris J,

That sounds good. I too had a short course using forms, but I never had much of an intution for them. Misner, Thorner and Wheeler certainly made them a bit more comprehensible to me. I still tend to think of them as something that eats vectors, though.

By: Chris J.

Chris J. — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 20:47:55 +0000

I’m actually in the process of reading Spacetime and Geometry (Just made it to chapter 3 a few days ago!) and I absolutely love it. I have been learning GR in my spare time for about 9 months and just managed to pick up a copy recently after trying (And failing) to go through Wald.

I especially like the part on manifolds and differential forms. I took a semester long course in differential geometry and didn’t really understand any of it intuitively until I read yours and Schutz’ A First Course In General Relativity.

My only complaint is that there are no hints/solutions to the exercises. This is very frustrating when you’re trying to learn this on your own without having anything to check it against.

By: Sili

Sili — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 19:08:37 +0000

I didn’t mean to imply that your book is inferior. But my qualities as a student are.

Thanks, Mars. That’s what the reviews on Amazon said as well.

By: Missy

Missy — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 19:05:35 +0000

Unfortunately the only one I have of those is your book From Eternity to Here that you signed for me at the Griffith Observatory

By: Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 14:52:07 +0000

1. Why is Spacetime and Geometry so expensive? 2. What is your view on the VSL hypothesis?

By: Mars

Mars — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 08:52:43 +0000

I learnt general relativity from Hartle’s “Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein’s General Relativity” and your book. I think for beginning graduate level general relativity your book is the best. For more advanced topics Wald’s book is great as well.

By: Sean

Sean — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:54:05 +0000

I would recommend my own book before anything else. But then, I wrote it, right?

By: Sili

Sili — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:40:07 +0000

I’m working my way through Gravity and it’s kinda fun to read something so thorough from a time before the third quark/lepton family and of course Dark Energy.

Would you recommend your own book if I want another perspective on the basics and an update, or are these five good enough?

By: Roger

Roger — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 19:55:23 +0000

Susskind’s book is a long argument about something that is not really even a scientific question. He claims to have won the argument by persuading some of his buddies, but not by any proof or experiment.

By: tacitus

tacitus — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:25:02 +0000

I'll second Timothy Ferris's Coming of Age in the Milky Way as a wonderful retelling of the history of cosmology. His updated The Whole Shebang (which I guess is a little dated now) is also highly recommended for anyone with a passing interest in cosmology.