Feynman Lectures on Gravitation (Paperback)

by Richard Feynman (Editor), Fernando Morinigo (Editor), William Wagner (Editor), Brian Hatfield (Editor), David Pines (Author), Fernando B. Morinigo (Author) "In this series of lectures we shall discuss gravitation in all its aspects..." (more)
Key Phrases: gravitational behavior, scalar matter, retarded term, Mach's Principle, Radiation of Gravitons (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Based on the in-class lectures of Richard Feynman, this book covers a wide range of topics in physics and provides a window to the thoughts of a brilliant Nobel laureate.

The Feynman Lectures on Gravitation are based on notes prepared during a course on gravitational physics that Richard Feynman taught at Caltech during the 196263 academic year. For several years prior to these lectures, Feynman thought long and hard about the fundamental problems in gravitational physics, yet he published very little. These lectures represent a useful record of his viewpoints and some of his insights into gravity and its application to cosmology, superstars, wormholes, and gravitational waves at that particular time. The lectures also contain a number of fascinating digressions and asides on the foundations of physics and other issues.

Characteristically, Feynman took and untraditional non-geometric approach to gravitation and general relativity based on the underlying quantum aspects of gravity. Hence, these lectures contain a unique pedagogical account of the development of Einstein's general relativity as the inevitable result of the demand for a self-consistent theory of a massless spin-2 field (the graviton) coupled to the energy-momentum tensor of matter. This approach also demonstrates the intimate and fundamental connection between gauge invariance and the Principle of Equivalence.

About the Author
The late Richard P. Feynman was Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology. Feynman made many fundamental contributions to physics, particularly to the fields of quantum electrodynamics, quantum field theory, and particle physics. He is best known for the development of Feynman diagrams and path integrals. Feynman shared the Nobel prize in physics in 1965 for his work on quantum electrodynamics.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press; 1st edition (July 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813340381
• ISBN-13: 978-0813340388
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #124,149 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #50 in

  Books > Science > Physics > Mechanics

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars General relativity as a quantum gauge field theory., February 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Feynman Lectures On Gravitation (Frontiers in Physics) (Hardcover)

Feynman gave a series of lectures on gravitation at a graduate seminar at Caltech in 1962. The lectures were recorded and transcribed by Morinigo and Wagner. A very readable introduction on quantum gravity was added by the editor, Brian Hatfield (whose book on quantum field theory and strings, I also recommend.) This is the only book I've seen which develops GR from a quantum field theory point of view. Feynman's lectures show that the GR field equations result from the requirement of gauge invariance under Lorentz transformations for a massless spin-2 field (i.e graviton). This is a more fundamental approach than the usual differential geometric framework and shows what the equivalence principle really means in terms of fundamental symmetries. Highly recommended for a modern field theory viewpoint of GR.

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, April 14, 2000

By	"physics-r-us" (Carrollton, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Feynman Lectures On Gravitation (Frontiers in Physics) (Hardcover)

This is a wonderful book which shows how a classical field theory like General Relativity can be derived from a quantum field theory. It also points out the extreme difficulty of accomplishing this in the case of gravity and ending up with a consistent, anomaly free theory.

Readers of this book will benefit from familiarity with both quantum field theory and relativity as well as a certain amount of mathematical sophistication. Don't be fooled by the similarity of title to other "Feynman Lectures on..." because this book is based on an upper level graduate physics course and assumes the background of a typical PhD student in physics.

Deep, complex and difficult going but well worth the effort to see the elegance of the connection between General Relativity and QFT.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brief review, June 12, 2008

By	Giuseppe Genovese "Giuseppe" (Naples, Italy) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The original Feynman's point of view about world is always matter of greatest interest. He deeply investigate, as ever he did, the principles of gravitation theory and beyond.