Relativity Demystified

by David McMahon, Paul M. Alsing

Finally, someone is going to explain Einstein’s theory of relativity in layman’s terms, without getting mired in overly heavy discussion or formal mathematics. In Relativity Demystified, key definitions, examples, and results join the trusted exercises that have made the Demystified series so successful in all subject areas.

Genres: Physics, Science

344 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2005

Reviews

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

General relativity (GTR) is the subject. The special theory (STR) is dispensed with in a few brief pages. You need to know bits of calculus, linear algebra, ODE and some PDE to understand the solutions. This book really does demystify relativity, in terms of the MATH of differential geometry. It starts out easy but gets tougher around p 70. I had to read chapters 4 and 5 over and over again and always write out all the index expressions. Cartan methods, check. But I'm still a bit foggy on the null tetrad and the Petrov classification based upon the Weyl tensor. Second reading: much, much easier. I see the logic of the presentation now. Also there are some misprints and omissions so just google for an errata sheet, necessary for some exercises. This a "how-to" approach to doing calculations in relativity, not a guide to understanding. There are no proofs or explanations of the symbolism. You will feel amazing power as you symbolically manipulate expressions utterly beyond your comprehension, but this may not be entirely a good thing.

(Psst, this is the most beautiful theory in physics)

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much tensor calculus and indexes being changed around from upper to lower. No overall roadmap showing why we go from Christoffel I to Christoffel II to Riemann tensor to Ricci tensor to Einstein tensor. Overall there was not much insight on the physics of the topic covered here.

[Chandra Prakash · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book, not because it is written for begginers (didn't skip a single step, and have alot of examples to grasp how things are defined) but mainly because it introduces topics in very intuitive way, best book on General Theory of Relativity as it is well written in terms of Tensors also chapter on tensor is so good that it cleared up alot of things I was confused about even Sean Carroll's book didn't clear that about Tensors. Also it introduces Killing Vectors as Lie Derivative, which is kind of awesome as o got to know that it is not some mathematician magic that they thought but implied Lie Algebra on GTR, Lie algebra is very important topic for Not just GTR but also for Particle Physics.