Space-Time Structure (Cambridge Science Classics) (Paperback)

by Erwin Schrödinger (Author) "We envisage a (four-dimensional) continuum whose points are distinguished from each other by allotting a quadruplet of continuous labels x1, x2, x3, x4 to each..." (more)
Key Phrases: symmetric affinity, affine connexion, normalized minors, General Relativity (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Reprint of a classical book first published in 1950. This lucid and profound exposition of Einstein's 1915 theory of gravitation is essential reading.

Book Description
Reprint of a classical book. First published in 1950, and reprinted in 1954 and 1960, this lucid and profound exposition of Einstein's 1915 theory of gravitation is still essential reading.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (November 29, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521315204
• ISBN-13: 978-0521315203
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #89,722 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an excellent companion, June 12, 2004

By A Customer

I've turned to this thin book far too many times to count. It was also a life-saver when I was learning General Relativity because of its clear and careful exposition. Schrodinger was doing this back when nobody was quite sure what the deal was with, e.g., index notation, and he took pains to lay out the benefits -- but also the limits -- of that system. See, for example, his discussion of the derivative operator, something that is almost always glossed over.

I'm in the middle of my dissertation now, and every now and then I hit on a subtlety in GR that my advisor has missed but I caught from reading this book.

Don't get thinking that this is Schrodinger's book on the unified field. It is more like the lecture notes of a very intelligent man figuring out what on Earth this truly new version of gravity is all about.

In the end of course this book is too slim to live on its own as a GR text. You will need to carry around a bigger, more comprehensive tome to get through your studies. As a handguide and emergency sense-maker, however, it has few equals.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good text with unique information, November 17, 2001

By A Customer

I am an advanced undergraduate physics student who has started to go through Space-Time Structure. It seems to be a very good book, but the section introducing tensors was not as lucid as it could be. If you already know tensors or have a good book like Shaum's Outline of Tensor Calculus, then it can be a very useful introduction to the affine viewpoint of relativity that Schrodinger promotes. The discussion of nonsymmetric unified field theories is introductory and it would be necessary to look up the references it cites to get a more in depth understanding of them.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars unified field theory, January 12, 2001

By	Douglas A. Gwyn "DAGwyn" (Columbia, MD USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book presents the results of Schroedinger's work in Ireland in which he explored the manifold of possibilities for unified field theories along the general lines pursued by Einstein. The main accomplishment was in constructing such a theory from just the connection, with metric derived as a consequence, using no ad hoc assumptions. I extended this work in my 1977 Master's thesis. While this kind of theory has gone out of style, it is still an exciting pursuit and Schroedinger's writing is clear and compelling.