Useful Sources for General Relativity
Books (My annotations)
- Foster, J. and Nightingale, J.D. A Short Course in General Relativity. Springer: New York, 1995.
This is a text intended for senior undergraduate or beginning graduate students. It goes through a general introduction to the geometry and equations associated with General Relativity. Rather short on physical explanations, the book does include an interesting appendix on the mathematics of a "south-pointing carriage" described in ancient Chinese history.
- Lilley, Sam. Discovering Relativity for yourself. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1981.
This book must be read straight through because each example draws from the ones before. It was impossible for me to pick up any specific topics from the middle, Lilley intends the reader to have little or no background in relativity and to tackle the entire book by itself. Lilley attempts to write for the layperson who has little to no physics or math background but I found his tone a bit condescending.
- Sartori, Leo. Understanding Relativity: A Simplified Approach to Einstein's Theories. University of California Press: Berkeley, 1996.
This book is fairly readable and includes many useful diagrams. The majority of the text focuses on Special Relativity including space-time diagrams and the famous paradoxes. The last two chapters cover General Relativity and cosmological implications using little math but getting the physical information across quite effectively.
- Schutz, Bernard F. A first course in general relativity. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1985.
Schutz's book is very similar to Foster & Nightingale's "Short Course..." but taken together the two books can supplement each other when one author or the other has a better explanation for the physical underpinnings of a mathematical statement. Schutz's mathematics, however, show their age and use slightly outdated notation.
- Thorne, Kip S. Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy. W.W. Norton & Company: New York, 1994.
Thorne's descriptions and explanations of the effects of General Relativity are the most understandable and clearly stated. I might go so far as to say, "beautiful." He uses imaginitive science-fiction-like stories to depict the effects of GR. All major topics of interest are covered, including black holes, wormholes, gravitational waves, and more. It may have been enormous (619 pages and, I admit, I didn't read all of them), but I found this book to be more helpful than any of the others listed here or any website I encountered during this project.
Websites
(My annotations)
- http://einstein.stanford.edu. Gravity Probe B.
This is the Gravity Probe B homepage containing technical and historical information on the project.
- http://lisa.jpl.nasa.gov. LISA homepage.
Here is where history, technical information and diagrams, as well as other information can be found about LISA.
- http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/relativity.html. Relativity on the World Wide Web.
Chris Hillman and then John Baez have organized these links pages such that you can find the appropriate material for your level of understanding no matter how little or much you've had of math, physics and astronomy education.
- http://skepdic.com. The Skeptic's Dictionary.
The Skeptic's Dictionary is an excellent resource for all things supernatural or unusual. It clearly defines pseudoscientific terms to disprove any idea that there are supernatural or metaphysical forces at work in our midst. Entries include deja vu, ESP, Loch Ness monster, Nostradamus, Holocaust denial, IQ and race, poltergeists, Santa Claus, spontaneous human combustion, and so much more. At the bottom of each definition there are links to pages containing more information on the topic.
- http://www.ligo.caltech.edu. LIGO homepage.
This is the starting point for learning about the LIGO project. From this page you can go to either the LIGO Hanford or the LIGO Livingston pages and also find information about the ongoing development of technology for LIGO. Be sure to check out the gift shop at LIGO Livingston!
- http://www.phy.syr.edu/research/relativity/rel-link.html. Relativity bookmarks galore.
Syracuse University hosts this page that has more relativity links than you could wade through in a lifetime. They don't claim to be up-to-date or necessarily useful but this is a good starting point if you really want to seriously dive into the study of relativity.
- http://www.usd.edu/phys/courses/phys300/gallery/clark/uhon.html. Founding Fathers of Relativity.
This page has biographical information on all the physicists involved with various aspects of the formulation of the theories of special and general relativity. It's also fun if you just want to see pictures of all those nerdy theoretical physicists.
Page designed and written by Chrissy Blank
Macalester College, Class of 2003
Feel free to e-mail any questions or comments:
cblank@macalester.edu
Note: all sources of images used within these pages are contained within links accessible by merely clicking on the images themselves.
8/10/01