Bryce DeWitt, a student of Nobel Laureate Julian Schwinger, was himself one of the towering figures in 20th century physics, particularly renowned for his seminal contributions to quantum field theory, numerical relativity and quantum gravity. In late 1971 DeWitt gave a course on gravitation at Stanford University, leaving almost 400 pages of detailed handwritten notes. Written with clarity and authority, and edited by his former student Steven Christensen, these timeless lecture notes, containing material or expositions not found in any other textbooks, are a gem to be discovered or re-discovered by anyone seriously interested in the study of gravitational physics.
Author(s): Bryce DeWitt (auth.), Steven M. Christensen (eds.)
Series: Lecture Notes in Physics 826
Edition: 1
Publisher: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
Year: 2011
Language: English
Pages: 288
Tags: Classical and Quantum Gravitation, Relativity Theory;Mathematical Methods in Physics;Differential Geometry
Front Matter....Pages i-xi
Review of the Uses of Invariants in Special Relativity....Pages 1-11
Accelerated Motion in Special Relativity....Pages 13-37
Realizations of Continuous Groups....Pages 39-49
Riemannian Manifolds....Pages 51-62
The Free Particle: Geodesics....Pages 63-70
Weak Field Approximation. Newton’s Theory....Pages 71-78
Ensembles of Particles....Pages 79-93
Production of Gravitational Fields by Matter....Pages 95-104
Conservation Laws....Pages 105-110
Phenomenological Description of a Conservative Continuous Medium....Pages 111-125
Solubility of the Einstein and Matter Equations....Pages 127-131
Energy, Momentum and Stress in the Gravitational Field....Pages 133-149
Measurement of Asymptotic Fields....Pages 151-159
The Electromagnetic Field....Pages 161-176
Gravitational Waves....Pages 177-217
Back Matter....Pages 219-287
