A First Course in General Relativity

This is the long-awaited second edition of the highly successful undergraduate text on classical relativity, dating from 1985.

The broad structure and content remain similar to the first edition, but later chapters have been extensively revised to include the scientific advances of the past 25 years, notably in the areas of astrophysical sources of gravitational waves, the LIGO and LISA detectors and real black holes in astronomy. The chapter on cosmology has been rewritten to reflect the evidence that the cosmological constant is now believed to be small but non-zero.

New exercises are also included, but the solutions in Appendix B of the first edition have been shifted to a password-protected website. The "further reading" sections include accessible web links and up-to-date references.

Who is it for? Able final-year undergraduates or first-year postgraduates, mathematicians and theoretical physicists on any general relativity course.

Presentation: Well laid out, developing logically and amply illustrated.

Would you recommend it? Absolutely.