General Relativity: an Einstein Centenary Survey

When this book was originally published in 1979, the vitality of Einstein’s general theory and its impact on other branches of science had never been greater. The unprecedented advances of the previous fifteen years had been stimulated on the observational side by developments in radar and space technology and by the discovery of exotic astronomical objects, which pointed to the existence of very strong gravitational fields, and possibly black holes, in many parts of the universe. Equally striking had been the progress in theoretical understanding, notably of black hole physics, the early history of the universe and the reconciliation of quantum physics and gravitational theory. To honour Einstein’s hundredth birthday, twenty-one of the world’s leading relativists collaborated on this carefully integrated survey of the state of research. This unique book, which remained a standard for many years, is indispensable to anyone concerned with the profound influence that Einstein’s theory has exerted on our notions of space, time and the ultimate nature of matter.

Spis treści:
List of contributors
Preface
1. An introductory survey S. W. Hawking and W. Israel
2. The confrontation between gravitation theory and experiment C. M. Will
3. Gravitational-radiation experiments D. H. Douglass and V. B. Braginsky
4. The initial value problem and the dynamical formulation of general relativity A. E. Fischer and J. E. Marsden
5. Global structure of spacetimes R. Geroch and G. T. Horowitz
6. The general theory of the mechanical, electromagnetic and thermodynamic properties of black holes B. Carter
7. An introduction to the theory of the Kerr metric and its peturbations S. Chandrasekhar
8. Black hole astrophysics R. D. Blandford and K. S. Thorne
9. The big bang cosmology - enigmas and nostrums R. H. Dicke and P. J. E. Peebles
10. Cosmology and the early universe Ya B. Zeldovitch
11. Anisotropic and inhomogeneous relativistic cosmologies M. A. H. MacCallum
12. Singularities and time-asymmetry R. Penrose
13. Quantum field theory in curved spacetime G. W. Gibbons
14. Quantum gravity, the new synthesis B. S. DeWitt
15. The path-integral approach to quantum gravity S. W. Hawking
16. Ultraviolet divergences in quantum theories of gravitation S. Weinberg
References
Index.