Customer Reviews

Gravitation and Spacetime (Second Edition)

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H. Ohanian and R. Ruffini have admirably succeeded in writing a book primarily concerd with the physics of the gravitational field. Without diminishing importance to the mathematical apparatus underlaying the General Theory of Relativity, this book crearly, concisely and beautifully explains the ideas, concepts, experiments and some aspects of the history of the modern theory of Gravitation. It is a very different book from the ones already existing; it presents the theory in such a logical and elegant way, that it's impossible not to read the book with a feeling of respect and admiration for the theory. Just to mention an example; with the formalisim presented in chapter two, the authors derive Maxwell's equations in chapter three from nothing, or almost nothing, just requiring a linear theory invariant under Lorentz and gauge transformations!! The clarity of the presentation is so refined that when I finished this chapter I thought: "oh! Why I didn't think about it by myself?" This book is as good as the books by Misner et al, Schutz or Weimberg, but at the same time it's different from them. Definitely, this book is a good choice for students who are beginning with the topic, but I also recommend Ohanian and Ruffini's book to more advanced students looking for a better undesrtanding of the theory. Certainly, with this book I learnt and enjoied the beauty and elegance of the General Theory of Relativity in full.

Although I must admit that, as a non-physics undergraduate, I was not able to fully follow all the calculations and derivations in this book, I still found it a very nice read. The first chapter on Newtonian Gravitation, with all the experimental facts and illustrious history leading to the advent of modern theories of gravitation, was the most enlightening of all. Moreover, I do agree with the reviewer who noted the book's refreshing approach to derive the "Einstein Equation" first through a linear approximation of gravitation. In fact the linear approximation of gravitation is used to make the most prominent predictions of general relativity such as gravitational waves and the bending of light beams due to massive celestial objects (the one prediction that was first confirmed by experiment). However, I wish that the calculations be more detailed. Instead, the author usually left out the last steps and asked the reader to complete them. But more likely this dissatisfaction of mine is largely due to my own inability to do theoretical calculations. Having said that, I still find that any textbook on general relativity written so that even non-physics undergrads can appreciate it, is by all means worth reading.

This is a great book, full of insights of all orders.

The linear version of theory of GR developed in the first chapters is easy to follow and gives to the reader enough power to start understanding the impressive reach of the full theory.

The articles about differential forms are quite clear (at least to me) and help you to understand why this forms are called " differential ".

This second edition was written well after the classical Dr. Wheeler's book "Gravitation" and greatly benefits from it.

I have the first edition and I am happy I bought the second one also.

The new edition is still better than the first one.

I hope I will see a third edition.

I taught myself general relativity (and tensor calculus) out of the first edition of this book. After struggling with Weinberg (no problems!) and Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler (off-putting preachy style--as noted by Chandrasekhar in his Physics Today review), I found this book a godsend. Ohanian's prose is straightforward and interesting. Every chapter is interspersed with instructive exercises (work them!); there are also good selections of end-of-chapter problems. I have rarely enjoyed working through a physics book as much as I did this one. Among many high points, I found section 7.1, General Covariance and Invariance, particularly enlightening.

The second edition, with Ruffini added as co-author, updates the first. It adds a concise, straightforward account of differential forms. In this respect, an excellent exposition is made even better.

I don't have much to add except to say that the production values are exemplary. Each chapter has an extensive section of further reading and a list of references. There are answers to all even problems (though none for the many "exercises left for the reader"), a section of color plates, and a good index. Typesetting and figures are very attractive. I'd only wish for wider margins for notes.

As others have mentioned, Ohanian introduces linearized GR (in a completely logical and satisfying manner) before Riemannian geometry. Most GR books at this level dump a huge load of mathematics on the student before much physics is ever seen, but Ohanian's approach allows many applications -- the bending and retardation of light, gravitational lenses, the Lense-Thirring effect, and a whole chapter on gravitational waves -- before the full Riemannian apparatus is introduced.

You'll need a pretty solid grasp of undergraduate mechanics (including Lagrangian mechanics) and electrodynamics to get the most out of the book.

The author has a good approach but a few more fully worked out examples would have been helpful. Make sure you are familiar with tensors as this is vital for understanding the technical aspects of this subject.

I read the 1st edition at my local library and enjoyed it so much, I went out and bought the 2nd edition. It is easier to understand than similar books on the topic.