I Learning GR with Leonard Susskind: Prerequisites Needed?

  • I
  • Thread starter Thread starter docnet
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Gr Lectures
docnet
Messages
796
Reaction score
488
TL;DR Summary
How good are Leonard Susskind's lectures on YouTube for learning GR?
I took differential geometry and introductory physics sequence in college, but not special relativity.

How good are Leonard Susskind's lectures on YouTube for learning GR?

Are there better sources to learn from?Thank you

Edit: is learning SR a prerequisite for GR?

 
Physics news on Phys.org
docnet said:
Summary:: How good are Leonard Susskind's lectures on YouTube for learning GR?

Edit: is learning SR a prerequisite for GR?
Yes. GR reduces to SR locally. That fact is used a lot. If you don’t understand SR then that will be confusing.
 
  • Like
Likes vanhees71 and docnet
Even more than that, SR is (as the name suggests) a special case of GR so effectively you will be learning both at the same time if you start from GR. However, in many cases the discussion in a typical GR course will involve referring back to the special case of SR. Starting with GR will therefore often require you to accept some things at face value as reasonable.
 
  • Like
Likes vanhees71 and docnet
I'd recommend checking out the GR lecture series from MIT OCW rather than that one. Susskind aimed his at a general audience. The ones from MIT are an actual course.
 
  • Like
Likes vanhees71, PeroK and docnet
I just learned from an advertizement by Springer that R. J. Adler wrote a brandnew textbook on GR for advanced undergraduates. As his older graduate-level book (1965, 1975) it looks like a gem but is much more introductory

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61574-1

I think for a first encounter with GR you need a good understanding of SR. My favorite at the introductory level for both is Landau and Lifshitz vol. 2.
 
  • Like
Likes Orodruin, Dale and docnet
I asked a question here, probably over 15 years ago on entanglement and I appreciated the thoughtful answers I received back then. The intervening years haven't made me any more knowledgeable in physics, so forgive my naïveté ! If a have a piece of paper in an area of high gravity, lets say near a black hole, and I draw a triangle on this paper and 'measure' the angles of the triangle, will they add to 180 degrees? How about if I'm looking at this paper outside of the (reasonable)...
Thread 'Relativity of simultaneity in actuality'
I’m attaching two figures from the book, Basic concepts in relativity and QT, by Resnick and Halliday. They are describing the relativity of simultaneity from a theoretical pov, which I understand. Basically, the lightning strikes at AA’ and BB’ can be deemed simultaneous either in frame S, in which case they will not be simultaneous in frame S’, and vice versa. Only in one of the frames are the two events simultaneous, but not in both, and this claim of simultaneity can be done by either of...
Back
Top