Gravitation and Cosmology: Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity (Hardcover)

by Steven Weinberg (Author)
Key Phrases: deacceleration parameter, apparent luminosity greater, locally inertial coordinate system, New York, Comments Astrophys, Space Phys (more...)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 657 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; First Edition edition (July 1972)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471925675
• ISBN-13: 978-0471925675
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #290,288 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book based on the physics, not the mathematics, August 5, 2002

By	marcvg "marcvg" (MA USA) - See all my reviews

After a completing graduate school, I decided it was time to learn GR on my own. I got Weinberg's book, and, at first reading, I was put off by it--there are effectively no diagrams, no problems, and no pedagogy. So on to Misner, Thorne, Wheeler. Well these kings have no clothes: MTW contains almost no clean, declarative sentences and could be reduced to 1/4 its size with straightforward editing. So I bought B. F. Schutz's book read it, and and went back to Weinberg's book. With both in hand, I am acquiring a satisfying understanding of GR. And I now realize that Weinberg's book is a masterpiece. As in all his texts, Weinberg's passion is to expose the underlying logic of the physics. All follows from the Equivalnce Princple, and this view gives his book a logic coherency that other's lack. (Try seeing where the Equivalence principle fits in Schutz's presentation.) One criticism: I believe that Weinberg was writing a text for his peers to set them straight about GR; he neglected students. It would have been great if he could have included a mathematical appendix or two to make the text more accessible. But even so, it is a wonderful book.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best, June 1, 2000

By	Alessandro (Italy) - See all my reviews

I greatly appreciated this book when I was a student. The tensor analysis is very carefully explained; in addition, you really get a basic physics understanding. The equivalence principle and Mach-Einstein theories discussions are simply wonderful. Of course, some experimental data are too old now to be taken seriously.

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Exposition on General Relativity, August 10, 2000

By A Customer

Weinberg is a master. His style is efficent. His words not wasted. His insights are inspiring. Behind each statement dwells a reservoir of thought. His selection and organization of the material seems non-improvable. Completion of the book yields general relativity in a comprehensive manner.

In addition to his methods, I am wholeheartedly biased towards his approach of basing general relativity on empiricism rather than geometry. Reading this book is almost synonomous with sitting at the feet of a master.

The methods utilized are standard tensor analysis, which yields the best results and understanding of the physics in a first exposure. MTW, in contrast, uses different mathematical approaches and moreover does so in an inconsistent manner. Weinberg is the BEST book, existing today, on general relativity period.