Hartle's Gravity: Read it Before Special Relativity?

[Goldbeetle]

Has anybody read the book? Is it just me or it would be better to read before a book on special relativity?

 

[Daverz]

Yes, I'd suggest a book on special relativity before tackling Hartle, though Hartle does cover SR. If you're finding that section of his book difficult, I'd suggest, as usual, the red paperback first edition of Spacetime Physics.

 

[Nabeshin]

You should definitely have had some exposure to SR before going through Hartle's Gravity. Even exposure on the level of simply manipulating lorentz factors and whatnot is very helpful before presented with the 4-vector formulation of everything. The book is, after all, an introduction to general relativity, and just quickly glosses over stuff from SR as a refresher/analogy to GR.

 

[Goldbeetle]

Thanks. I'm reading "A Traveller's Guide to Spacetime" and it's excellent. I also have "Spacetime Physics" (first red paperback edition with exercises and solutions" and the book by French.