Is Gravitation by Misner, Thorne, Wheeler outdated?

[Joker93]

Hi!
With the re-release of the textbook "Gravitation" by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler, I was wondering if it is worth buying and if it's outdated.
Upon checking the older version at the library, I found that the explanations and visualization techniques in the sections on differential(Riemannian) geometry are excellent. But, before buying it, I would like to know if it is outdated as it was written long ago.
Thanks!

 

[Daverz]

If you get the Kindle sample, you can read the foreward to the new printing by Misner and Thorne:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0746TC525/?tag=pfamazon01-20

"Gravitation was published in 1973, near enough to the end of the Relativistic Renaissance that most of that Renaissance’s major theoretical insights and observational discoveries were in hand. While there have been some major additional insights and discoveries in the four decades since, they are few enough that Gravitation is seriously out of a date in only a moderate number of areas; primarily cosmology (Part VI), gravitational waves (Part VIII), experimental tests of general relativity (Part IX), and observations but not the theory of black holes and neutron stars (Parts V and VII)."

They then do a detailed chapter by chapter evaluation of what material is still relevant and what is outdated.

 

[martinbn]

What do you mean by outdated? That there are new things done after the publication of the book? Then, yes, it is outdated. Every book is outdated in this sense a few years after it's been published. Or do you mean that the book is so old that it is not worth studying from it? Then, no, it is not out dated in this sense. If you want to study GR you will need to learn the topics covered in the book, and if the style suits you, then it is worth getting it.

 

[GR Expert]

The 2017 edition is simply a reprint with a new foreword and introduction. There are >no< updates or revisions. The only previous edition is the first: i.e., it has >never< seen an update or a revision.

 

[Swamp Thing]

Do they still have those amusing chapter subtitles that parody archaic narrative works ("In which our hero sallies forth on his quest...") ?

 

[ohwilleke]

I own the book and have mixed feelings about it. It isn't a horrible textbook. But it also wouldn't be in my top five STEM textbooks. It is mediocre as a pedagogical tool.

It is huge and quite loosely organized, almost as a collection of mini-textbooks rather than one coherent textbook, with the understanding that most courses in the subject would only teach some of the subjects that chapters in it make available. It also begins with quite a few chapters of the more advanced mathematical background needed to do the physics in the textbook, which is convenient if you don't have that background, since you don't have to get math textbooks too. But the treatment of those mathematical topics is basically limited to GR applications of those mathematical tools.

In some places, the wording feels sloppy when greater precision is called for. Some of it would come across well enough in (or in support of) a spoken lecture, with room to ask questions, but it is less optimal for self-study. It makes no effort to be elegant or efficient in expression, preferring a sort of brute force muddling through teaching style. If you want elegant prose, read Feynman's lectures on gravitation, which are roughly contemporaneous, more easily available for free, and much more elegantly put (but less useful for learning the nuts and bolts of GR).

The basics of GR haven't changed all that much since the 1970s. But I would agree that the chapters identified in post #2 are outdated. It has some anachronistic statements here and there, but they don't really detract much from the substance of most of the topics covered.

On the other hand, I recently bought James Binney and Scott Tremaine, Galactic Dynamics (Second Edition 2008), which is a natural successor to "Gravitation" applying GR to galaxies at roughly a master's degree program in astrophysics level. And, while Binney and Tremaine is, IMHO, on the whole better written and is more coherently a single textbook, and is slimmer (and more up to date on the subjects it covers which were updated in 2008 rather than the 1970s), it is in tiny, maybe 8-9 point font, and has fewer illustrations and white space to break up the text, so it is quite hard on the eyes to read and slow going. (Perhaps this observation is just my age and bifocals showing.)

"Gravitation" at least has very readable typesetting and a reasonably sized font with plenty of white space and does a better job of breaking up its text with illustrations, in its favor. This is not irrelevant in a textbook that has the equivalent of two or three semesters of 400/500 level college physics class material in it, that you will spend a lot of time working with if you use all or most of it.