Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    General Theory of Relativity: The Commonwealth and International Library: Selected Readings in Physics
    General Theory of Relativity: The Commonwealth and International Library: Selected Readings in Physics
    General Theory of Relativity: The Commonwealth and International Library: Selected Readings in Physics
    Ebook312 pages6 hours

    General Theory of Relativity: The Commonwealth and International Library: Selected Readings in Physics

    By C. W. Kilmister and D. ter Haar

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    General Theory of Relativity deals with the general theory of relativity and covers topics ranging from the principle of equivalence and the space-theory of matter to the hypotheses which lie at the bases of geometry, along with the effect of gravitation on the propagation of light. The motion of particles in general relativity theory is also discussed. This book is comprised of 14 chapters and begins with a review of the principle of equivalence, paying particular attention to the question of the existence of inertial frames in Newtonian mechanics. The beginnings and foundations of general relativity are then considered, together with modern developments in the field. Subsequent chapters explore the general notion of multiply extended magnitudes; the space-theory of matter; the effect of gravitation on light propagation; gravitational waves and the motion of particles in general relativity theory; and homogeneity and covariance. An invariant formulation of gravitational radiation theory is also presented. The last three chapters examine continued gravitational contraction, a spinor approach to general relativity, and gravitational red-shift in nuclear resonance. This monograph will be of interest to physicists and mathematicians.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherElsevier Science
    Release dateOct 22, 2013
    ISBN9781483154657
    General Theory of Relativity: The Commonwealth and International Library: Selected Readings in Physics

    Read more from C. W. Kilmister

    Related to General Theory of Relativity

    Related ebooks

    Science & Mathematics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      How the Universe Remembers Information

      Feb 28, 2019

      It was one of the great missed connections of physics. In 1965 a particle theorist derived a formula for the collision of elementary particles. Twenty years later two gravitation theorists, using completely different techniques, derived a formula for

      6 min read

    • Article

      Will Quantum Mechanics Swallow Relativity?: The contest between gravity and quantum physics takes a new turn.

      Oct 29, 2015

      It is the biggest of problems, it is the smallest of problems. At present physicists have two separate rulebooks explaining how nature works. There is general relativity, which beautifully accounts for gravity and all of the things it dominates: orbi

      17 min read

    • Article

      Time Flows Toward Order

      Dec 2, 2020

      The one law of physics that virtually all scientists believe will never be found to be wrong is the second law of thermodynamics. Despite this exalted status, it has long been associated with a great mystery and a bleak implication. The mystery is th

      9 min read

    • Article

      A Brief History of the Grand Unified Theory of Physics

      Mar 16, 2017

      Particle physicists had two nightmares before the Higgs particle was discovered in 2012. The first was that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator would see precisely nothing. For if it did, it would likely be the last large accelerator

      18 min read

    • Article

      Math’s Beautiful Monsters: How a destructive idea paved the way for modern math.

      Apr 3, 2014

      Much like its creator, Karl Weierstrass’ monster came from nowhere. After four years at university spent drinking and fencing, Weierstrass had left empty handed. He eventually took a teaching course and spent most of the 1850s as a schoolteacher in B

      10 min read

    • Article

      The Quantum Mechanics of Fate: How time travel might explain some of science’s biggest puzzles.

      Jan 30, 2014

      The objective world simply is, it does not happen,” wrote mathematician and physicist Hermann Weyl in 1949. From his point of view, the universe is laid out in time as surely as it is laid out in space. Time does not pass, and the past and future are

      6 min read

    • Article

      Let’s Rethink Space: Does space exist without objects, or is it made by them?

      Jan 14, 2016

      Space is brutally egalitarian. When you become separated from your lover, the two of you retain no tighter a physical connection than do two lumps of coal. In this way, space serves as the organizing principle of the natural world—the glue that binds

      26 min read

    • Article

      Physics Has Demoted Mass

      Nov 9, 2017

      You’re sitting here, reading this article. Maybe it’s a hard copy, or an e-book on a tablet computer or e-reader. It doesn’t matter. Whatever you’re reading it on, we can be reasonably sure it’s made of some kind of stuff: paper, card, plastic, perha

      10 min read

    • Article

      Why Mathematicians Should Stop Naming Things After Each Other

      Sep 2, 2020

      Any student of modern math must know what it feels like to drown in a well of telescoping terminology. For a high-profile example, let’s take the Calabi-Yau manifold, made famous by string theory. A Calabi-Yau manifold is a compact, complex Kähler ma

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Metaphysical Baggage of Physics: Lee Smolin argues that time is more fundamental than physical laws.

      Jan 30, 2014

      An issue on time would not be complete without a conversation with Lee Smolin. High school dropout, theoretical physicist, and founding member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada, Smolin’s life and work reflect many

      7 min read

    • Article

      What Keeps Black Holes From Expanding Everywhere?

      Dec 10, 2018

      Black holes are somehow able to grow constantly without changing their size. Physics might finally be able to explain why.

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Math That Takes Newton Into the Quantum World

      Feb 28, 2019

      In my 50s, too old to become a real expert, I have finally fallen in love with algebraic geometry. As the name suggests, this is the study of geometry using algebra. Around 1637, René Descartes laid the groundwork for this subject by taking a plane,

      9 min read

    • Article

      Tensor Flow 101

      Jan 27, 2020

      Tensor Flow 101
      4 min read

    • Article

      When Gravity Breaks Down

      Feb 15, 2019

      When Gravity Breaks Down
      5 min read

    • Article

      Secrets Of Gravity

      Feb 22, 2024

      Secrets Of Gravity
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Trouble with Theories of Everything: There is no known physics theory that is true at every scale—there may never be.

      Oct 1, 2015

      Whenever you say anything about your daily life, a scale is implied. Try it out. “I’m too busy” only works for an assumed time scale: today, for example, or this week. Not this century or this nanosecond. “Taxes are onerous” only makes sense for a ce

      8 min read

    • Article

      The THEORY of EVERYTHING

      Jun 20, 2019

      The THEORY of EVERYTHING
      6 min read

    • Article

      How Physics Is Like Three-Chord Rock: Like a set of common chords, the same math appears in diverse fields of physics.

      Jun 12, 2014

      A few years back, 12 million of us clicked over to watch the “Pachelbel Rant” on YouTube. You might remember it. Strumming repetitive chords on his guitar, comedian Rob Paravonian confessed that when he was a cellist, he couldn’t stand the Pachelbel

      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for General Theory of Relativity

    3.5/5

    4 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      This book has two parts. The second part consisits of some reprints of papers that are relevant to general relativity theory. The first part is an introduction to general relativity and an explanation of how those papers reprinted in the second part fit in to the whole picture. The first part reads more like a Scientific American article and is very easy to read, possibly because at the time the book was published (1973) most people were totally unacquainted with general relativity. The author gives a very good intuitive explanation of many points which are glossed over in later books. The basic ideas behind the Petrov classification is an example of one of these points. Highlights of the reprint section include a paper by Riemann (translated by W. K. Clifford) which gives Riemann's orginal ideas on the possible physical significance of Riemannian geometry. Riemann points out that we can by experiment determine the geometry of space on the middle scale in which we live, but the geometry of space on the infinitely large scale and the infinitely small scale would be very challenging. Indeed, interest has now focused on the large (cosmology) and given up on the infinitely small. The latter is now given over to quantum theories which essentially hide the details. A reprinted part of a paper by Clfford provides an example what might be done in the latter context. He presents a view that all matter and its actions are describable in terms of extremely small variations in the geometry of space. Another reprinted paper by Einstein presents elaborates on that theme. In this paper (summarizing work from the thirties and fourties) it is shown that the motion of particles (represented by singularities) in response to force fields can be accounted by the interaction of the fields. The mathematics of this interaction is accomplished by surface integrals over very small spherical surfaces surrounding (and thus isolating) the singularity. A similar idea was presented by Weyl about 1925 and is called the agens theory of matter. It would be interesting to know the interaction of Weyl and Einstein on this subject. This book is an interesting sidelight on the development of general relativity.

    Book preview

    General Theory of Relativity - C. W. Kilmister

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1