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Daniel Cunningham's Reviews > Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity
Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity
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So, I've only actually read about 2/3 of this, as I used it as textbook and didn't cover all topics. We did use/cover Chapters 1 - 9, 12, 13, 17, 18, 22, with very light coverage of 20-21 (we really did 22 in more a descriptive mode, I'd say.)
That said, I survived an undergraduate intro to GR and... it wasn't that bad. It was hard, no doubt there, but the book was solid and helpful.
My one complaint is that there is a tendency to skip steps in examples; these are often mathematical steps that may seem obvious or even trivial, and are sometimes messy intermediate stages of calculus and algebra that someone probably thought of as only taking up valuable space. But: for a student, seeing the stuff for the first time, every step matters (I'd say, "of course, obviously," but maybe not...) Sometimes the minutiae of the simple algebra helps complete an explanation where a 6th re-reading of the same paragraph just won't.
Long winded for one complaint, can you tell I *just* finished the class? :)
Solid 4 stars.
That said, I survived an undergraduate intro to GR and... it wasn't that bad. It was hard, no doubt there, but the book was solid and helpful.
My one complaint is that there is a tendency to skip steps in examples; these are often mathematical steps that may seem obvious or even trivial, and are sometimes messy intermediate stages of calculus and algebra that someone probably thought of as only taking up valuable space. But: for a student, seeing the stuff for the first time, every step matters (I'd say, "of course, obviously," but maybe not...) Sometimes the minutiae of the simple algebra helps complete an explanation where a 6th re-reading of the same paragraph just won't.
Long winded for one complaint, can you tell I *just* finished the class? :)
Solid 4 stars.
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Reading Progress
September 2, 2014
– Shelved as:
to-read
September 2, 2014
– Shelved
September 2, 2014
– Shelved as:
dead-trees
September 2, 2014
– Shelved as:
phys-math-astro
October 2, 2014
–
Started Reading
December 14, 2014
–
Finished Reading
June 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
school-textbooks
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Adam
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Nov 13, 2016 04:18PM
Although I agree with you on your points, I must say that giving it an 80% score is a bit unfair. The book states from the start that it wants to convey the fundamental physics behind SR and GR. I have found no books for undergraduates that give you so much intuition about the geometry of spacetime as this book(except the excellent book by Zee).
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