Relativity, Gravitation and Cosmology: A Basic Introduction by Ta-Pei Cheng

By Ta-Pei Cheng
Einstein's basic thought of relativity is brought during this complicated undergraduate and starting graduate point textbook. themes contain detailed relativity, within the formalism of Minkowski's 4-dimensional space-time, the primary of equivalence, Riemannian geometry and tensor research, Einstein box equation, in addition to many sleek cosmological topics, from primordial inflation and cosmic microwave anisotropy to the darkish strength that propels an accelerating universe.
The writer offers the topic with an emphasis on actual examples and straightforward functions with out the whole tensor gear. The reader first learns the best way to describe curved spacetime. At this mathematically extra obtainable point, the reader can already learn the numerous attention-grabbing phenomena reminiscent of gravitational lensing, precession of Mercury's perihelion, black holes, and cosmology. the entire tensor formula is gifted later, whilst the Einstein equation is solved for a number of symmetric circumstances. Many sleek issues in cosmology are mentioned during this publication: from inflation, cosmic microwave anisotropy to the "dark power" that propels an accelerating universe.
Mathematical accessibility, including a few of the pedagogical units (e.g., worked-out strategies of chapter-end problems), make it sensible for readers to take advantage of the booklet to review basic relativity and cosmology on their lonesome.