Relativity, Gravitation and Cosmology: A Basic Introduction

The author presents the subject with an emphasis on physical examples and simple applications without the full tensor apparatus. The reader first learns how to describe curved spacetime. At this mathematically more accessible level, the reader can already study the many interesting phenomena such as gravitational lensing, precession of Mercury's perihelion, black holes, and cosmology. The full tensor formulation is presented later, when the Einstein equation is solved for a few symmetric cases. Many modern topics in cosmology are discussed in this book: from inflation, cosmic microwave anisotropy to the "dark energy" that propels an accelerating universe.

Mathematical accessibility, together with the various pedagogical devices (e.g., worked-out solutions of chapter-end problems), make it practical for interested readers to use the book to study general relativity and cosmology on their own.

There are plenty of graduate textbooks on general relativity, points out Cheng (physics, U. of Missouri), and plenty of popular works describing in for lay readers. He offers an intermediate textbook for undergraduate students that can be used by instructors who are not themselves specialists in relativity. Students are expected to have the usual mathematics at the calculus level, some familiarity with matrices, and the physics of mechanics and electromagnetism including differential equations of Maxwell's theory. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Ta-Pei Cheng is currently Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Missouri - St. Louis. He took his Ph.D. at Rockefeller University in 1969, followed by post-doctoral study at Rockefeller University and at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton). He has been on the faculty of University of Missouri - St. Louis from 1973 to the present day, and was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1982.