They can often be quite useful for understanding particular
details of general relativity, its applications, or the associated
mathematics
The books are listed in no particular order, but simply as I
wrote them down.
Gravitation, by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler;
W. H. Freeman &
Co., 1971.
Contained virtually everything known on the subject at the time
of its writing. Uses all the right sign conventions!
It is an excellent source for a review of special relativity,
in the first 9 chapters, and for a straightforward but detailed
approach to the mathematical foundations, in chapters 10-15.
Introduction to Special Relativity,
by W. Rindler, Oxford U., 1991.
A fine, physically-based introduction to many of the
details of special relativity.
Relativity, by Hans Stephani, 2004 (3rd Edn.) Cambridge Univ. Press.
An introduction to both special and general relativity, but with the former strongly
focused on the needs of the latter. Has a rather different perspective than many
current texts, partly because the author was an active researcher in the field of
exact solutions in general relativity, and symmetries of nonlinear differential
equations, for many years.
Gravitation and Spacetime, by Ohanian and Ruffini, Norton, 1994.
Supposed to be available to seniors;
it indeed does appear simpler, but I
haven't really studied it in great detail.
Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity,
by James B. Hartle, Addison-Wesley, 2003.
This book labels itself as a discussion of the physically relevant solutions of the Einstein equation,
without first presenting derivations or too-sophisticated mathematics, as a course for junior- or senior-level
physics students. It does a good job of that, although does not present
enough understanding of the depth of
the material for my approach. It
also has a website, which has greater coverage of modern details, more
mathematical derivations, and some fine color photographs, as well as some
(Mathematica-based) computer-algebra programs to calculate connections and
curvatures.
Gravity, from the ground up, by Bernard Schutz,
Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003.
This is a book with great quantities of words, and figures, trying to explain ALL
the interesting physical, and experimental, aspects of general relativity, with only
the physics that one would have picked up from an introductory first course in
physics, say at the level of Halliday, Resnick, and Walker. And it is written by
a well-acknowledged expert in the field!
Introduction to General Relativity, by Adler, Bazin and Schiffer,
McGraw Hill, 1975.
An older, reliable book, with many good presentations, and
an excellent approach to the study of the Petrov types of solutions
to Einstein's field equations.
An Introduction to General Relativity and Cosmology, by Jerzy Plebanski
and Andrzej Krasinski, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006.
Quite recent, and put together by an expert in the set of all cosmological
solutions of the Einstein field equations. Has detailed discussions of the
Lemaitre-Tolman cosmologies which are not homogeneous, and their relations
to the data known at the time of writing, which definitely includes the
moderately-recent supernovae data.
Relativity and Cosmology, by Robertson and Noonan, Saunders, 1968.
Again older but reasonable; has excellent presentations of the
electromagnetic field.
Gravitation and Cosmology, by Steven Weinberg, John
Wiley, 1972.
While this is an older book, and also uses only older tensor-style
notation, it has an excellent section on Lie derivatives and
symmetries,
and is certainly one of the most detailed beginning references for
a physicist's approach to cosmology.
Principles of Physical Cosmology, by P.J.E. Peebles,
Princeton U., 1993.
Very good astronomer's approach to cosmology, with lots of discussion
about real measurements from real data. As well, tries to integrate
it with theoretical general relativity. [Note that this is the 1993
edition; the earlier edition did not do any of this integration!]
Theory and experiment in gravitational physics, by Clifford Will,
Cambridge U., 1981. Excellent discussions of all experiments known
at that time, with mathematics only as needed.
Problem book in relativity and gravitation, by Lightman, Press,
Price and Teukolsky, Princeton U., 1975.
Worked out problems to go along with
the ordering of the text by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler.
Exact Solutions to Einstein's
Field Equations: Second Edition, by Stephani, Kramer, MacCallum,
Hoenselaers, and Herlt. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003)
While it is quite advanced, and detailed, this book is recent and contains
both a detailed summary of the majority of the known solutions of Einstein's
field equations and concise summaries of what one needs to know in order to
understand those solutions. Therefore, there
are quite a lot of interesting things to look at, especially in the early
parts.
The large scale structure of space-time, by Hawking and Ellis,
Cambridge U., 1973.
The standard basic reference for details of problems
concerning singularities in general relativity.
Has very good, brief descriptions of both deSitter
and anti-de Sitter universes, with comments concerning their use
as cosmologies.
Advanced General Relativity, by John Stewart, Cambridge,
1990.
This book has 2 chapters on advanced aspects of some mathematis
that is useful in relativity, namely some modern approaches to
tensor theory (also known in that case as differential geometry),
and a very good approach to spinors. It then has 2 chapters on
global properties of solutions of the field equations, especially
relating to limits very, very far from sources, and on how you
begin a problem---with Cauchy data.
Group Theory and General Relativity, by Moshe Carmeli,
McGraw-Hill, 1977.
Has excellent discussions of the representations of the (complex)
Lorentz group, the relationships of this to spinors in general
relativity, and details of the Bondi-Metzner-Sachs group, which
is an important way to try to understand the physical content of
newly-discovered solutions of the field equations.
The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes, by Chandrasekhar, Oxford
U., 1992.
An advanced, and very well presented approach to this problem,
including details of perturbative calculations for applications to real
world astrophysics.
Physics of Black Holes, by Novikov and Frolov, Kluwer, 1989.
The best source for astrophysical applications, up to that time.
Black Holes and Time Warps, by Kip Thorne, Norton, 1994.
A history
of science, discussing the evolution of these ideas by a person who was
intimately involved in much of it; highly readable, but no mathematics.
Black Holes and Relativistic Stars, edited by Robert M.
Wald, U. Chicago Press, 1998.
Being the talks at a conference honoring the work of Chandhrasekhar.
A lot of it is quite general overviews of current research efforts, and
therefore quite interesting.
Essential Relativity, by Rindler, Springer-Verlag, 1979.
A very nice discussion of the attitude the title takes, to both special
and general relativity, with considerable physical insight.
