What is a good general relativity book for self-study?

[Hobold]

Hello, I'm a Mechanical Engineering student and I want a good general relativity book to study, as this course isn't offered in my course and my credits are already exploding for me to get this course this/next semester, so I will be studying on my on.

Also, which pre-requisites would be good to have? I have a good calculus background and basic physics knowledge (University-level mechanics, waves, heat, fluids, eletromagnetism, modern physics, optics, etc)

Anything in Spanish, Portuguese, English, German, Italian or French is fine.

 

[Pengwuino]

What do you mean "University level"? If that is the introductory freshman course, then you're not prepared.

My university doesn't offer an undergraduate course in general relativity so my experience is from the graduate course. Our course realistically required a course in partial differential equations, differential geometry would have been nice, Jackson level electromagnetism (graduate level), and I suppose that is it... not that that's to be taken lightly!

 

[Hobold]

Thanks for your answer. I thought I was eligible for it.

Thread may be closed.

 

[deluks917]

You could try "A first course in General Relativity" by Bernard Schutz: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521887054/?tag=pfamazon01-20. A very large part of the book is spent developing the math needed to tackle general relativity. Usually I'd say this is unnecessary (most people study general relativity as seniors or in grad school) but in your case it might be what you are looking for. The book even goes over special relativity pretty well.

 

[Daverz]

Gravity by Hartle may be accessible to you. Though you'd still get more out of it if you've worked with Maxwell's equations in differential form.

Schutz is a more traditional GR book (i.e. developing the Riemann tensor before getting into much physics.)

 

[Goldbeetle]

Read a book on special relativity, first. I suggest "A Traveller's guide to spacetime"!

 

[Mueiz]

The best book in GR is The General Theory of Relativity by P A M Dirac

 

[kuahji]

You could try "A first course in General Relativity" by Bernard Schutz: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521887054/?tag=pfamazon01-20. A very large part of the book is spent developing the math needed to tackle general relativity. Usually I'd say this is unnecessary (most people study general relativity as seniors or in grad school) but in your case it might be what you are looking for. The book even goes over special relativity pretty well.

I agree, this is a very good book. However I prefer https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521735610/?tag=pfamazon01-20

The one by Narlikar has pretty much the same information as Schutz, however Narklikar's examples and illustrations more illuminating.

 

[redrzewski]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/020138423X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Gentle intro with minimal math requirements.

 

[kuahji]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/020138423X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Gentle intro with minimal math requirements.

Agreed. If you're not looking for something math intensive this is a great book. However if you go this route, you should probably also pick up https://www.amazon.com/dp/020138423X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Although Spacetime Physics is about Special Relativity rather than General Relativity, the book Exploring Black Holes builds off of this work. Both are great and very insightful books on the subject. They however lack the more advanced content, and mathematical formalism you'd find in Schutz's and Narklikar's books.