Notes on Relativity and Cosmology. 5. Einstein said "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. The ratio of conceptual to mathematical problems is higher than in most books. I bought this book at special price from here: I hope that no one will ask me what was this book about . "Semi-Riemannian Geometry With Applications to Relativity" by Barrett O'Neill. Albert Einstein was a really smart motherfucker. Then, I changed my major and went into other subjects that I really cared about. Cookie Settings, Terms and Conditions The research of recent years has provided considerable clarity and insight on stellar collapse, black holes and the nature and structure of spacetime singularities. Start by marking “Relativity: The Special and the General Theory” as Want to Read: Error rating book. “Dear Habicht, / Such a solemn air of silence has descended between us that I almost feel as if I am committing a sacrilege when I break it now with some inconsequential babble... / What are you up to, you frozen whale, you smoked, dried, canned piece of soul...?”. If you decide to participate, a new browser tab will open so you can complete the survey after you have completed your visit to this website. Starting from physical motivations, curved coordinates are introduced, and then the notion of an affine connection field is added. The motion of particles in general relativity theory is also discussed. July 25th 2006 Although I could hardly claim that I understood 10 percent of the book ! Smooth manifolds and scalar fields, tangent vectors, contravariant and covariant vector fields, tensor fields, Riemannian manifolds, locally Minkowskian manifolds, covariant differentiation, the Riemann curvature tensor, premises of general relativity. Einstein, a pacifist during World War I, stayed a firm proponent of social justice and responsibility. This is the copy that I wanted. But I never really paid close attention to what it really meant. Einstein supposedly made this as accessible as he could, but made the limitations of his genius known by how clunky and technical the book remains. Einstein was one of those who had been forced to rethink our universe based on the contradictions raised by the apparent anisotropy of the fixed speed of light. Moving reference bodies, Euclidean geometry, Newtonian theory of gravitation, ..... What ?! (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Sir Arthur Eddington here formulates mathematically his conception of the world of physics derived from the theory of relativity. Everything depends on your reference body and everything is relative ! What about the keyboard I am using right now, could it be anything else on another planet ?! Welcome back. 1. Overall this was a very strong book, although, as another reviewer pointed out, “trying to teach general relativity in 45 pages with no math is just too tall an order.”. Read on my Kindle, free from Project Gutenberg. Length is relative as well as mass ! The manuscript emphasizes the use of differential forms, rather than tensors, which are barely mentioned. Share your review so everyone else can enjoy it too. ... Relativity : the Special and General Theory Imprint: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1920 Note: See also PG#30155: Language: English: LoC Class: QC: Science: Physics: Subject: Relativity (Physics) Category: Text: … It does not substitute for a deep understanding -- that takes more work. However, I will try to read more about it. Topics include: Asymptotic structure of spacetime, conformal diagrams, null surfaces, Raychaudhury equation, black holes, the holographic principle, singularity theorems, Einstein-Hilbert action, energy-momentum tensor, Noether's theorem, etc.