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Baez explains GR in several online tutorial-things
Short Course Outline
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/gr/outline1.htm [Broken]
Long Course Outline
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/gr/outline2.htm [Broken]
Oz stories of General Relativity
The Meaning of Einstein's Equation
http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/einstein/einstein.html
Baez approach is intuitive and needs very little *special* relativity background. At a point where he would like to have Minkowski metric from "special" he quickly explains it.
I think the need for "special" as a prerequisite is exaggerated. Certain things one needs to know, but there is a lot of excess baggage about astronauts that is not needed for an introductory course in General. I think Baez tutorial demonstrates that.
Baez intro to GR is good, but ROVELLI'S APPROACH IS ENTIRELY DIFFERENT
If you have looked at Baez, have a look at Chapter 2 of Rovelli's new book (1 August, 2003 draft) pages 21-71, which is his General Relativity chapter, and compare.
Rovelli's treatment is serious, modern, and difficult. Baez's is easy and comic and old-fashioned in the sense that he uses the metric g as the fundamental variable.
Rovelli does not introduce the subject by way of the metric. This impresses me as radically new.
Rovelli is a Relativist----GR is his professional field of specialization. He seems to be taking a new approach to introducing the subject...right away the development begins with Ashtekar's new variables, or so it seems to me.
Rather than beginning the development with the metric and going along the way textbooks have for 70 years and then
finally, if there is time, showing how to change over to the new variables.
So this looks like a ground-breaking thing pedagogically, to me.
Do you know anyone else who approaches the subject that way?
Rovelli's book is online
http://www.cpt.univ-mrs.fr/~rovelli/book.pdf
I mentioned the link in the "Theoretical" forum thread about it
Short Course Outline
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/gr/outline1.htm [Broken]
Long Course Outline
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/gr/outline2.htm [Broken]
Oz stories of General Relativity
The Meaning of Einstein's Equation
http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/einstein/einstein.html
Baez approach is intuitive and needs very little *special* relativity background. At a point where he would like to have Minkowski metric from "special" he quickly explains it.
I think the need for "special" as a prerequisite is exaggerated. Certain things one needs to know, but there is a lot of excess baggage about astronauts that is not needed for an introductory course in General. I think Baez tutorial demonstrates that.
Baez intro to GR is good, but ROVELLI'S APPROACH IS ENTIRELY DIFFERENT
If you have looked at Baez, have a look at Chapter 2 of Rovelli's new book (1 August, 2003 draft) pages 21-71, which is his General Relativity chapter, and compare.
Rovelli's treatment is serious, modern, and difficult. Baez's is easy and comic and old-fashioned in the sense that he uses the metric g as the fundamental variable.
Rovelli does not introduce the subject by way of the metric. This impresses me as radically new.
Rovelli is a Relativist----GR is his professional field of specialization. He seems to be taking a new approach to introducing the subject...right away the development begins with Ashtekar's new variables, or so it seems to me.
Rather than beginning the development with the metric and going along the way textbooks have for 70 years and then
finally, if there is time, showing how to change over to the new variables.
So this looks like a ground-breaking thing pedagogically, to me.
Do you know anyone else who approaches the subject that way?
Rovelli's book is online
http://www.cpt.univ-mrs.fr/~rovelli/book.pdf
I mentioned the link in the "Theoretical" forum thread about it
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