General Relativistic Dynamics: Extending Einstein's Legacy Throughout the Universe

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Synopsis: This book brings Einstein's general relativity into action in new ways at scales ranging from the tiny Planck scale to the scale of immense galactic clusters. It presents the case that Einstein's theory of gravity can describe the observed dynamics of galaxies without invoking the unknown "dark matter" required in models based on Newtonian gravity.Drawing on the author's experience as a lecturer and on his own research, the book covers the essentials of Einstein's special and general relativity at a level accessible to undergraduate students. The early chapters provide a compact introduction to relativity for readers who have little or no background in the subject. Hermann Bondi's very transparent approach to special relativity is expanded to resolve the "twin paradox" using only elementary mathematics. In later chapters, general relativity is used to extend the concept of the Planck scale, to address the role of the cosmological term and to analyze the concept of "time machines".

Review: Einstein's general theory of relativity has inspired many studies and expositions of the same. The one we have here is indeed another fresh perspective. The book reviews the special as well as general theories of relativity and also many topics in relativity and astrophysics which are of modern day interest. It is a pleasure to see the k-Calculus approach by Bondi reviewed and discussed here, and the treatment on cosmology again contains new but not frequently discussed topics in books at this level, such as motions of stars in the galaxy, galaxy clusters, and closed time-like curves. The author's own work and his new approaches are seen at many places. It is a delightful treatment and the students as well as researchers in gravitation physics will enjoy reading through many of the interesting issues here. --Pankaj Joshi, Professor, Tata Institute for Fundamental Research

Bibliographic Details

Title: General Relativistic Dynamics: Extending ...
Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Company
Publication Date: 2009
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: very good