Relativity: Special, General, and Cosmological

Wolfgang Rindler9780198567325, 9781435609709, 0198567324, 0198567316, 9780198567318

Relativistic cosmology has in recent years become one of the most exciting and active branches of current research. In conference after conference the view is expressed that cosmology today is where particle physics was forty years ago, with major discoveries just waiting to happen. Also gravitational wave detectors, presently under construction or in the testing phase, promise to open up an entirely novel field of physics. It is to take into account such recent developments, as well as to improve the basic text, that this second edition has been undertaken. The most affected is the last part on cosmology, but there are smaller additions, corrections, and additional exercises throughout. The books basic purpose is to make relativity come alive conceptually. Hence the emphasis on the foundations and the logical subtleties rather than on the mathematics or the detailed experiments per se. Aided by some 300 exercises, the book promotes a deep understanding and the confidence to tackle any fundamental relativistic problem.

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Table of contents :
Preface……Page 8
Preface to the Second Edition……Page 10
Contents……Page 12
Introduction……Page 18
1 From absolute space and time toinfluenceable spacetime: an overview……Page 20
Part I Special Relativity……Page 48
2 Foundations of special relativity;The Lorentz transformation……Page 50
3 Relativistic kinematics……Page 78
4 Relativistic optics……Page 94
5 Spacetime and four-vectors……Page 106
6 Relativistic particle mechanics……Page 125
7 Four-tensors; Electromagnetism invacuum……Page 147
Part II General Relativity……Page 180
8 Curved spaces and the basic ideas ofgeneral relativity……Page 182
9 Static and stationary spacetimes……Page 200
10 Geodesics, curvature tensor andvacuum field equations……Page 220
11 The Schwarzschild metric……Page 245
12 Black holes and Kruskal space……Page 275
13 An exact plane gravitational wave……Page 301
14 The full field equations;de Sitter space……Page 313
15 Linearized general relativity……Page 335
Part III Cosmology……Page 362
16 Cosmological spacetimes……Page 364
17 Light propagation in FRW universes……Page 390
18 Dynamics of FRW universes……Page 408
Appendix……Page 436
Index……Page 440