5 ms·

Lecture Notes on General Relativity (1997)

105 points by miobrien 9y ago

mturmon 9y ago
Sean Carroll is interviewing Janna Levin at the LA Public Library downtown branch, next Thursday night: http://lfla.org/event/black-hole-blues-songs-outer-space/ http://lfla.org/event/black-hole-blues-songs-outer-space/
ivan_ah 9y ago
These are pretty good notes. Here is the PDF version: https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9712019 https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9712019
ziotom78 9y ago
I used these notes when I prepared the general relativity exam in my university years. I found them much clearer than Wald's "General Relativity", the textbook used in the class. However, when I had to prepare lecture notes for my own class on cosmology several years later, I found these notes a bit too simplistic. Many of the details and definitions in Wald's text that I found unnecessarily complicated 15 years ago suddenly become unavoidable to my eyes (scompare e.g., Wald's chapter about manifolds with Carrol's definition). I still think that Carrol's notes are a great introduction to GR. But it would be better for you to keep some other bigger text at hand as well, in order to fill all the details that are missing in the former.
- barking 9y ago
  There was a submission (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14177074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14177074) here recently that linked to the wikepedia article on the curse of knowledge. Could it be that Wald's textbook illustrates that phenomenon?
- joshvm 9y ago
  Hobson [, Efstathiou and Lasenby] was the book I used to revise for my exams, and that was good. It's not overly simplistic and requires a bit of working to get through the maths, but it's comprehensive and goes further than most undergraduate courses do (up to Kerr black holes and a bit more).
- 77pt77 9y ago
  > Wald's chapter about manifolds with Carrol's definition You shouldn't be getting these definitions from physics books anyway. Carrol's note are good to get a decent grasp on the subject and using them as a trampoline to reach higher levels.
SubiculumCode 9y ago
Steve Carell's lecture notes on General Relativity? That guy makes me laugh!
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- SubiculumCode 9y ago
  you do realize it was a joke? the guy from the office?
musgravepeter 9y ago
I found Carroll's book excellent (the notes seems very similar). As the author of a tool for GR calculations (grtensor on github) I've been collecting intro GR books. I did my PhD in GR 20 years ago and am getting back into it. My impressions so far: Carroll is excellent. Hartle is also great - very physics first approach. Stephani - Good intro with some material not found in others Shutz (the book I used in grad school) - solid intro MTW looks great on the book shelf, very useful every time I dip into it, a bit daunting to go front to back Zee - looks interesting, I'm only on p10 Wald - I seldom pull this off the shelf. As a second book, I highly recommend Poisson "A relativists toolkit". Another great resource is "Exact space-times in Einstein's General Relativity" (Griffiths and Podolsky)
- inlineint 9y ago
  There is also a nice small book by Paul Dirac https://books.google.ru/books?id=Jtu-n8AzJhMC https://books.google.ru/books?id=Jtu-n8AzJhMC Unlike other texts, it derives everything through embedding of the space-time manifold to a high-dimensional Euclidian space. It means that although it lacks some generality, the curvature and covariant differentiation become somewhat more intuitive and the calculations might feel easier to follow for those who are studying the subject for the first time and are not familiar with differential geometry.
- imrehg 9y ago
  Cheers for the recommendations! And it's cool context too, regarding why you are into GR. As a physicist myself, in the atomic physics area, but not working within there at the moment, I was wondering: what brought you back, whether you are doing with in on the side, or something even more substantial?
  - musgravepeter 9y ago
    Entirely on the side. I ended up in telecom SW but always tried to putter away on physics-based side projects (e.g. Geodesic Asteroids and Three Body apps on iOS, Android). In playing with geodesic equations I tried to use GRTensorII on my Mac and decided it was time to update it (my former supervisor & external examiner were very keen!). This lead me to work through "Relativists Toolkit" - doing all the problems - using GRTensor where I could. I'm now planning to spend a vacation week at the Atlantic GR conference and give a talk on GRIII. My hobbies tend to get a bit out of control! Some of this is blogged about on http://nbodyphysics.com/blog/ http://nbodyphysics.com/blog/
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
bindidwodtj 9y ago
One directory listing back gives a wealth of further information https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March01/Carroll3/ https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March01/Carroll3/
leephillips 9y ago
Perhaps similar to the notes at the author's website: http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/grnotes/ http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/grnotes/ ?
mit_trash 9y ago
He used to be a postdoc at MIT when I was doing my PhD in String Theory. I remember him as an extremely snobby person, but an incompetent physicist.

105 points by miobrien 9y ago

Sean Carroll is interviewing Janna Levin at the LA Public Library downtown branch, next Thursday night: http://lfla.org/event/black-hole-blues-songs-outer-space/ http://lfla.org/event/black-hole-blues-songs-outer-space/

ivan_ah 9y ago

These are pretty good notes. Here is the PDF version: https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9712019 https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9712019

ziotom78 9y ago

I used these notes when I prepared the general relativity exam in my university years. I found them much clearer than Wald's "General Relativity", the textbook used in the class. However, when I had to prepare lecture notes for my own class on cosmology several years later, I found these notes a bit too simplistic. Many of the details and definitions in Wald's text that I found unnecessarily complicated 15 years ago suddenly become unavoidable to my eyes (scompare e.g., Wald's chapter about manifolds with Carrol's definition). I still think that Carrol's notes are a great introduction to GR. But it would be better for you to keep some other bigger text at hand as well, in order to fill all the details that are missing in the former.

barking 9y ago
There was a submission (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14177074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14177074) here recently that linked to the wikepedia article on the curse of knowledge. Could it be that Wald's textbook illustrates that phenomenon?
joshvm 9y ago
Hobson [, Efstathiou and Lasenby] was the book I used to revise for my exams, and that was good. It's not overly simplistic and requires a bit of working to get through the maths, but it's comprehensive and goes further than most undergraduate courses do (up to Kerr black holes and a bit more).
77pt77 9y ago
> Wald's chapter about manifolds with Carrol's definition You shouldn't be getting these definitions from physics books anyway. Carrol's note are good to get a decent grasp on the subject and using them as a trampoline to reach higher levels.

SubiculumCode 9y ago

Steve Carell's lecture notes on General Relativity? That guy makes me laugh!

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
SubiculumCode 9y ago
you do realize it was a joke? the guy from the office?

musgravepeter 9y ago

I found Carroll's book excellent (the notes seems very similar). As the author of a tool for GR calculations (grtensor on github) I've been collecting intro GR books. I did my PhD in GR 20 years ago and am getting back into it. My impressions so far: Carroll is excellent. Hartle is also great - very physics first approach. Stephani - Good intro with some material not found in others Shutz (the book I used in grad school) - solid intro MTW looks great on the book shelf, very useful every time I dip into it, a bit daunting to go front to back Zee - looks interesting, I'm only on p10 Wald - I seldom pull this off the shelf. As a second book, I highly recommend Poisson "A relativists toolkit". Another great resource is "Exact space-times in Einstein's General Relativity" (Griffiths and Podolsky)

inlineint 9y ago
There is also a nice small book by Paul Dirac https://books.google.ru/books?id=Jtu-n8AzJhMC https://books.google.ru/books?id=Jtu-n8AzJhMC Unlike other texts, it derives everything through embedding of the space-time manifold to a high-dimensional Euclidian space. It means that although it lacks some generality, the curvature and covariant differentiation become somewhat more intuitive and the calculations might feel easier to follow for those who are studying the subject for the first time and are not familiar with differential geometry.
imrehg 9y ago
Cheers for the recommendations! And it's cool context too, regarding why you are into GR. As a physicist myself, in the atomic physics area, but not working within there at the moment, I was wondering: what brought you back, whether you are doing with in on the side, or something even more substantial?
- musgravepeter 9y ago
  Entirely on the side. I ended up in telecom SW but always tried to putter away on physics-based side projects (e.g. Geodesic Asteroids and Three Body apps on iOS, Android). In playing with geodesic equations I tried to use GRTensorII on my Mac and decided it was time to update it (my former supervisor & external examiner were very keen!). This lead me to work through "Relativists Toolkit" - doing all the problems - using GRTensor where I could. I'm now planning to spend a vacation week at the Atlantic GR conference and give a talk on GRIII. My hobbies tend to get a bit out of control! Some of this is blogged about on http://nbodyphysics.com/blog/ http://nbodyphysics.com/blog/

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

bindidwodtj 9y ago

One directory listing back gives a wealth of further information https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March01/Carroll3/ https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March01/Carroll3/

leephillips 9y ago

Perhaps similar to the notes at the author's website: http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/grnotes/ http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/grnotes/ ?

mit_trash 9y ago

He used to be a postdoc at MIT when I was doing my PhD in String Theory. I remember him as an extremely snobby person, but an incompetent physicist.