ASTR 3740 Relativity & Cosmology Spring 2014: Texts

Notes

I will be lecturing from a combination of the following resources:

Scanned copy of my hand-written notes for this class, original version 2004, revised 2014:
Selected Chapters of the proto-book (the latest 2018 version of which is linked at) General Relativity, Black Holes, and Cosmology:
- Ch. 1 Special Relativity
- parts of Ch. 2 on General Relativity
- Ch. 5–9 on Ideal Black Holes
- Ch. 10 on Cosmology
Websites:

Good Books

Ta-Pei Cheng (2010) Relativity, Gravitational and Cosmology: A Basic Introduction (Oxford University Press). This is a recommended text for this course. The first three parts, on special and general relativity, black holes, and cosmology, cover the same material as this course. The last part provides a taste of general relativity at the graduate level.
Barbara Ryden (2002) Introduction to Cosmology (Addison-Wesley). This is also a recommended text for this course. Cosmology for undergraduate scientists without heavy general relativity.
James B. Hartle (2003) Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity (Addison Wesley). A comprehensive, up-to-date text on special and general relativity, including two chapters on cosmology. The text is aimed at the serious undergraduate science major, but is remarkably accessible.
Bernard F. Schutz (2003) Gravity from the Ground up (Cambridge University Press). From the author of the well received graduate text "A First Course in General Relativity". This book is widely recommended by people who should know.
Edwin F. Taylor & John A. Wheeler (1997) Spacetime Physics 2nd ed. (W. H. Freeman).
A delightful introduction to special relativity aimed at beginning undergraduate scientists.
Edwin F. Taylor and John A. Wheeler (2000) Exploring Black Holes (Addison Wesley).
This is an equally wonderfully written text on general relativity, with an emphasis on black holes, again aimed at beginning undergraduate scientists.
John F. Hawley & Katherine A. Holcomb (2005) Foundations of Modern Cosmology, 2nd edition (Oxford University Press).
Beautifully written, easy to follow. Mostly on cosmology, but includes extensive chapters on special and general relativity, and even discusses wormholes. Its disadvantage in this course is that, being a book aimed primarily at non-science majors, it does not cover the mathematics adequately, although it does include more mathematics than is typical for such books. You should definitely go for the 2nd edition, because the 1st edition is woefully out of date, thanks to extraordinary progress in observational cosmology during the 21st century.
Kip S. Thorne (1994) Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy (Norton).
A wonderfully readable, authoritative book which takes you to the edge of knowledge in Relativity and Black Holes, without mathematics, and without patronizing. You won't learn relativity from this book, but you will learn a great deal about relativity. This is a model of how a popular science book should be written.

Other Good Books

Leo Sartori (1996) Understanding Relativity. This book covers special relativity in a way similar to the way I will be presenting it, with much additional commentary and discussion. The book concludes with single chapters on general relativity and cosmology.
Ray D'Inverno (1992) Introducing Einstein's Relativity (Oxford University Press). Covers special and general relativity, and cosmology. A well-written, comprehensible, but serious text aimed at science undergraduates. I think Hartle's book is to be preferred, being more up to date, and at least as comprehensive and comprehensible.
Matthias Blau's (2014) Lecture Notes on General Relativity.
The best set of lecture notes aimed at graduate students that I know of. And you can download them for free. The original version of these notes dates to 1999, and they are constantly being updated.
Robert P. Kirshner (2002) Extravagant Universe : Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Cosmos (Princeton University Press).
A popular book on the 1998 revolution that led to the Standard Model of Cosmology, written by one of the revolutionists.
M. Begelman & M. Rees (1996) Gravity's Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe (Scientific American Library).
A popular book on the astronomy of black holes by CU's own Mitch Begelman and Britain's Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees.
John Cramer (1997) Einstein's Bridge (Avon $13).
This is a science fiction novel involving wormholes. The author is a practicing physicist, and knows his general relativity. A compelling read.
Carl Sagan (1985) Contact (Pocket Books $7).
The book that eventually became a film. Kip Thorne was the consulting general relativistic expert on this novel. I preferred the film to the book.
George Gamow (1965; reprinted 1996) Mr. Tompkins in Paperback (Cambridge University Press).
A classic.

Movies

A list of popular movies involving black holes or wormholes.

ASTR 3740 Spring 2014 Homepage

Updated 2017 Jan 16