The Cosmic Frontiers Of General Relativity

Cosmology deals with the nature of the universe. It can be broadly divided into three great ages. The first began in the 6th century BC with the Pythagorean concept of a spherical Earth that is part of a universe in which the motions of the planets are governed by the harmonious relations of natural laws. The second began in the 16th century with the Copernican revolution. This in turn led into Newton's infinite universe. The third began in the early 20th century with Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity and developed into the expanding universe we know today. Einstein's general theory of relativity extended the new space and time concepts of the special theory of relativity from the domain of electric and magnetic phenomena to all of physics and, particularly, to the theory of gravitation. By building on Einstein's previous work on special relativity, general relativity sought to deal with accelerating frames of reference. This in turn led to the principle of equivalence. By dealing with accelerating frames of reference, general relativity provides astronomers with the best theory to predict the effects of gravity. The book examines in detail new and important work in this field.

This 1989 text will be of value to those who wish to understand developments in computer studies of general relativity at the time of publication.

The aim of this two-volume title is to give a comprehensive review of one hundred years of development of general relativity and its scientific influences. This unique title provides a broad introduction and review to the fascinating and profound subject of general relativity, its historical development, its important theoretical consequences, gravitational wave detection and applications to astrophysics and cosmology. The series focuses on five aspects of the theory: The first three topics are covered in Volume 1 and the remaining two are covered in Volume 2. While this is a two-volume title, it is designed so that each volume can be a standalone reference volume for the related topic.

"In this chapter cosmological special relativity is extended to five dimensions by adding time to the three spatial dimensions and the velocity of the Hubble expansion. As a consequence of this extension, equations of electrodynamics are considered through the extended skew-symmetric tensor, in which a new field is included along with the electric and magnetic fields. This new field is due to the Higgs interaction associated with the expansion of the Universe. It is unified with the electromagnetic interaction in the frame of cosmology. The field equations are developed in five dimensions. In addition to the well-known Maxwell equations new equations that describe the mix-up of different fields are obtained."--Publisher's website.

Introduces the physics of general relativity in relation to modern topics such as gamma-ray bursts, black holes, and gravitational waves.

Spacetime physics -- Physics in flat spacetime -- The mathematics of curved spacetime -- Einstein's geometric theory of gravity -- Relativistic stars -- The universe -- Gravitational collapse and black holes -- Gravitational waves -- Experimental tests of general relativity -- Frontiers