Getting started general relativity

Question

What are some good books, videos, websites for getting started with general relativity?

Mathematically rigorous preferred!

Answer 1

I can only recommend textbooks because that's what I've used, but here are some suggestions:

• Gravity: An Introduction To General Relativity by James Hartle is reasonably good as an introduction, although in order to make the content accessible, he does skip over a lot of mathematical detail. For your purposes, you might consider reading the first few chapters just to get the "big picture" if you find other books to be a bit too much at first.
• A First Course in General Relativity by Bernard Schutz is one that I've heard similar things about, but I haven't read it myself.
• Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity by Sean Carroll is one that I've used a bit, and which goes into a slightly higher level of mathematical detail than Hartle. It introduces the basics of differential geometry and uses them to discuss the formulation of tensors, connections, and the metric (and then of course it goes on into the theory itself and applications).
• General Relativity by Robert M. Wald is a classic, though I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I haven't read much of it. From what I know, though, there's certainly no shortage of mathematical detail, and it derives/explains certain principles in different ways from other books, so it can either be a good reference on its own (if you're up for the detail) or a good companion to whatever else you're reading.
• Gravitation by Charles Misner, Kip Thorne, and John Wheeler, is pretty much the authoritative reference on general relativity (to the extent that one exists). It discusses many aspects and applications of the theory in far more mathematical and logical detail than any other book I've seen. (Consequently, it's very thick.) I would recommend having a copy of this around as a reference to go to about specific topics, when you have questions about the explanations in other books, but it's not the kind of thing you'd sit down and read large chunks of at once.
• Gravitation and Cosmology: Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity by Steven Weinberg is another one that I've read a bit of. Honestly I find it a bit hard to follow - just like some of Weinberg's other books, actually - since he gets into such detailed explanations, and it's easy to get bogged down in trying to understand the details and forget about the main point of the argument. Still, this might be another one to go to if you're wondering about the details omitted by other books. This is not as comprehensive as the Misner/Thorne/Wheeler book, though.

Answer 2

You can't beat a bit of Hobson.

Answer 3

To me there a two sides to understanding GR. For the conceptual side you cannot do any better than getting it straight from the horses mouth (i.e. Einstein):

http://www.bartleby.com/173/

The other side of the coin is the mathematical apparatus. I got a lot of mileage out of this introduction to tensor calculus for GR:

http://web.mit.edu/edbert/GR/gr1.pdf

Really focuses on the bare-bones of the math while not omitting the coordinate free treatment. Only prerequisites are calculus and linear algebra.

Then as an additional reference I find L. D. Landau's text book on theoretical physics Vol 2 very useful.

Answer 4

Lillian Lieber: Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

Answer 5

I would suggest it really is worth reading Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler (MTW). Its the only textbook I have managed to find which really explains things so I can understand each line and also covers the main advanced aspects of the theory. I would also definitely suggest you should have read a good book on special relativity before tackling MTW.

Answer 6

I've been trying to teach myself GTR for about the last twelve months. I stopped my formal maths/physics education when I was 18, many years ago.

IMveryveryHO you could do worse than starting with the twelve video lectures by Leonard Susskind of Stanford University. They're on YouTube but there's a general link here http://www.cosmolearning.com/courses/modern-physics-general-relativity/ They really are excellent.

I find all of the textbooks hard going! But I liked Lambourne (Relativity, Gravitation and Cosmology) - about the most accessible of the bunch, I found. I bought Lambourne after spending a lot of time trying to understand Schutz, which is quite rigorous enough for me and a good reference book for my level. He takes you through the maths quite carefully, but it's not easy and big chunks go straight over my head. I liked it enough to buy a copy though.

I also like Foster and Nightingale which is nice and concise and which I got cheap second hand.

I bought D'Inverno second hand but I wish I hadn't bothered. Much too difficult, though I do occasionally look at it.

I tried Relativity Demystified but it didn't.

Carroll has put a complete course of notes online as well. See http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March01/Carroll3/Carroll_contents.html

Answer 7

It all depends on your background. The recent translation to English of Grøn/Næss Norwegian GR book is a very easy and plesant read:

Einstein's Theory: A Rigorous Introduction for the Mathematically Untrained

Still, it is rigorous (it even says so in the title!). They don't go very far, but do touch upon some solutions (e.g. Schwarzschild) and cosmology.

Answer 8

To get a first idea of what GR is all about, with loads of solved exercises, try General Relativity Without Calculus.

Answer 9

For the mathematically inclined there is also:

Sachs, Wu, General Relativity for Mathematicians (Springer Graduate Texts in Mathematics)

Answer 10

I think D'Inverno's "Introducing Einstein's Relativity" is a good text for a rigorous primer in GR.

The following link could be useful for you:

http://www.desy.de/user/projects/Physics/Administrivia/rel_booklist.html

To have fun while reading these books, you can enjoy "The Einstein Theory of Relativity: A trip to the fourth dimension", by Lillian Lieber.