Customer Reviews

An Introduction to Tensor Calculus, Relativity and Cosmology

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are many books on General Relativity but the reader has to be careful to pick the right one so as not to waste his (or rarely her) time and money! Lawden's book belongs to the class of technical introductions - it requires you to have an undergraduate background in physics and mathematics. The author is primarily a teacher and he has taken care to make the material as easy to understand as possible. On the other hand, this book will not enable you to go directly to the research literature. A great plus of the book is the very reasonable price. I have had the infuriating experience of paying more than $100 for a highly praised textbook only to find it unreadable. The mathematical formalism Lawden employs (tensor calculus based on covariant and contravariant tensors) is now considered old fashioned but it is still the easiest for a beginner in my opinion. Once you have finished this book, I recommend that you read Synge and Schild's "Tensor Calculus" for more depth in the mathematics and also "The Principle of Relativity" (a collection of original papers by Einstein and others) to get a feeling for the history of the subject. Both of these are also Dover paperbacks and very cheap. Then if you want a more modern approach, I recommend Schutz's "A First Course in General Relativity" which is still reasonably priced and will bring you closer to the level of contemporary research. Schutz uses a formalism of tensor calculus which aligns it with differential geometry and is now used in advanced textbooks.

I'm really impressed with the clarity of the material.

I've worked through 21 problems in chapter 2, and the answers to the exercies do not have a single mistake in them yet.

The publisher will also email you a .pdf file of all of the chapter problems worked out in detail. I've found the solutions to the problems to be a good supplement to the text itself.

I would buy other titles from this author and publisher.

This book is very good for those seeking an introduction to Tensor Calculus, Relativity and Cosmology. Nothing more than a basic and fundamental know-how of physics is required, atleast for the first few chapters. If you're comfortable with the simple basics of linear algebra, classical mechanics, electromagnetics and calculus, you should have no problem with this book.

The book starts out with a basic review of classical physics and very quickly progresses to the Lorentz Transformation, and then to Cartesian Tensors and Special Relativity. Lawden handles the flow quite well, and covers the basic Special Relativity mechanics & electrodynamics as well as general Tensor Calculus & Riemann Spaces. Finally, he proceeds to discuss the General Theory of Relativity with a strong focus on Black Holes & Gravitational waves and analyzes elements of Cosmology in the light of the General Theory of Relativity.

However, I would not recommend this book in and of itself for learning Tensor Calculus. Unfortunately, Lawden does not have any relevant references to Quantum Mechanics, either, which would have proven to be immensely useful to the novice reader. You'd also do well to brush up on your physics fundamentals before jumping head-on.

This book primarily acts as a very basic introduction to those that are not familiar with some aspects of elementary modern physics such as Tensor Calculus and Relativity, and does an extremely good job of that.

Personally, I'd highly recommend this book if you're looking to read up on Relativity & related areas.

This book provides a good introduction to the basics of both the special and the general Theory of Relativity. I do not, however, like its style entirely. It is a little dated, too. For example, for the special part of the theory, the author sticks to Cartesian tensors only, which is advantageous only from the vantage of a student interested in... Special Relativity! This wastes time; moreover, I regard the choice of x_4 = ict unfortunate. Finally, despite the book being only 205 pages long and covering a reasonable amount of basic stuff, the style is wordy.

Study elsewhere (the book by D'Inverno is OK, the ones by Schutz and Wald rock), and if you feel the need for practice with some elementary point, go for the exercises in this book.

As a writer and philosopher I have tried to get a genuine scientific understanding of topics like quantum physics and relativity. Treatments tend to be either over-simplified (no math) or presume you are very competent at graduate-level math. My past efforts have raised my math competence to the point where this book, for me, is at a near-perfect level. I found the explanation and use of tensors tied to physics in a way that helped me with both subjects.

I was also pleased with the treatment of general relativity. Many books give good accounts of special relativity, but this is the best presentation of general relativity that includes the mathematics involved.

I would recommend this to anyone who is willing to do the math. But without at least a basic understanding of vectors and partial derivatives, you will not be able to follow the text.

I bought this work years ago as an undergraduate and worked through most of it. It does a decent job of presenting the basics, though generally in an old-fashioned approach to the subject. I have never found occasion to return to it (except to write this review). There are quite a few texts that do a better job. For example, at the undergraduate level there is Hartle's excellent text and for the more serious student Carroll's and Wald's books are the solid standard texts. In short, I advise bypassing this little volume, despite its tempting price.