Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

General Relativity for Mathematicians

  • Textbook
  • © 1977

Overview

Authors:
  1. Rainer K. Sachs

    1. Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, USA

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  2. Hung-Hsi Wu

    1. Department of Mathematics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, USA

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Part of the book series: Graduate Texts in Mathematics (GTM, volume 48)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Preliminaries

    • Rainer K. Sachs, Hung-Hsi Wu
    Pages 1-16

  3. Spacetimes

    • Rainer K. Sachs, Hung-Hsi Wu
    Pages 17-35

  4. Observers

    • Rainer K. Sachs, Hung-Hsi Wu
    Pages 36-59

  5. Electromagnetism and matter

    • Rainer K. Sachs, Hung-Hsi Wu
    Pages 60-110

  6. The Einstein field equation

    • Rainer K. Sachs, Hung-Hsi Wu
    Pages 111-123

  7. Photons

    • Rainer K. Sachs, Hung-Hsi Wu
    Pages 124-158

  8. Cosmology

    • Rainer K. Sachs, Hung-Hsi Wu
    Pages 159-215

  9. Further applications

    • Rainer K. Sachs, Hung-Hsi Wu
    Pages 216-249

  10. Optional exercises: relativity

    • Rainer K. Sachs, Hung-Hsi Wu
    Pages 250-265

  11. Optional exercises: Newtonian analogues

    • Rainer K. Sachs, Hung-Hsi Wu
    Pages 266-272

  12. Back Matter

    Pages 273-291
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

This is a book about physics, written for mathematicians. The readers we have in mind can be roughly described as those who: I. are mathematics graduate students with some knowledge of global differential geometry 2. have had the equivalent of freshman physics, and find popular accounts of astrophysics and cosmology interesting 3. appreciate mathematical elarity, but are willing to accept physical motiva­ tions for the mathematics in place of mathematical ones 4. are willing to spend time and effort mastering certain technical details, such as those in Section 1. 1. Each book disappoints so me readers. This one will disappoint: 1. physicists who want to use this book as a first course on differential geometry 2. mathematicians who think Lorentzian manifolds are wholly similar to Riemannian ones, or that, given a sufficiently good mathematical back­ ground, the essentials of a subject !ike cosmology can be learned without so me hard work on boring detaiis 3. those who believe vague philosophical arguments have more than historical and heuristic significance, that general relativity should somehow be "proved," or that axiomatization of this subject is useful 4. those who want an encyclopedic treatment (the books by Hawking-Ellis [1], Penrose [1], Weinberg [1], and Misner-Thorne-Wheeler [I] go further into the subject than we do; see also the survey article, Sachs-Wu [1]). 5. mathematicians who want to learn quantum physics or unified fieId theory (unfortunateIy, quantum physics texts all seem either to be for physicists, or merely concerned with formaI mathematics).

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, USA

    Rainer K. Sachs

  • Department of Mathematics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, USA

    Hung-Hsi Wu

Bibliographic Information

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation