General Relativity

by Robert M. Wald

"Wald's book is clearly the first textbook on general relativity with a totally modern point of view; and it succeeds very well where others are only partially successful. The book includes full discussions of many problems of current interest which are not treated in any extant book, and all these matters are considered with perception and understanding."—S. Chandrasekhar

"A tour de force : lucid, straightforward, mathematically rigorous, exacting in the analysis of the theory in its physical aspect."—L. P. Hughston, Times Higher Education Supplement

"Truly excellent. . . . A sophisticated text of manageable size that will probably be read by every student of relativity, astrophysics, and field theory for years to come."—James W. York, Physics Today

Genres: Physics, Science, Textbooks, Nonfiction, Mathematics, Reference, Stem

506 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[Zihao · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is the most successful GR book so far. I actually took Prof. Wald's course on GR using this book. The first three chapters on tensors and manifolds may be hard for people with insufficient math background. However, once you get through those, the rest of the book tells you a comprehensive story of GR.

[Erickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

*Second reading* I read this for the second time this year for my qualifier/comprehensive exam, which loosely covers Chapter 1-6. I think this time I could grasp a lot of ideas better, as it should (now that I am second year PhD).

What I have come to feel is that this book is somewhere in between rigorous GR texts and physically intuitive GR texts. Bob (Wald) tries to go beyond standard "introductory texts" by covering as much ground as possible in as concise, physically sensible manner as possible. Naturally he had to pay a price: fewer exercises (which are not so trivial), and sometimes rather opaque statements (whose details are left to the readers). I think this is the best he could do to be more technical than most books but without converting this into a pure mathematical GR textbook. The arrangement of technical requirements like manifolds, topology, symmetries into the Appendices is a very clever idea (and convenient).

Overall, I think this book is *not* for learning GR the first time, unless you simply love challenges. I would recommend readers to pick easier textbooks, or better still, take an actual course with lecture notes that are well-written, before using this book (or keeping this as a -reference text-). For instance, I think what made me able to learn more was after taking courses, and reading Harvey Reall's lecture notes in GR.

This is a good book to keep as reference text. You will find most of the ideas you need for GR here. But for more details, explicitness, and newer contents, or even exotic ones (like wormholes and time machines), you will need to go beyond this.

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Technically done a while back, focusing on chapter 1-6 and chapter 8,9, and 12. Also appendices. The rest are very specialized topics which may not be useful to read unless you work with them directly.

Didn't really do the exercises, but rigour is definitely there and the book serves as excellent reference where you could simply find what you need inside, and whenever details are omitted you will know how to look elsewhere. It's the book you will keep for many years possibly till you stop doing relativity.

[Joydeep Sarkar · Rating 5 out of 5]

General RelativityOne of the best books of general theory of relativity. Quite rigorous-mathematically heavy. Basic knowledge of metric space, topological space(Appendix A contains some of it) and formal knowledge of special relativity are required as prerequisites. The discussion on causal structure of space time is very beautiful. However, for first reading, I will suggest to pick J B Hartle's Gravity(the more illustrative one).

[Philip Mancino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Without a doubt the seminal introductory graduate text on General Relativity. While the interesting index notation can be cumbersome at times, the body of the work is extremely readable and serves as a fantastic introduction to the field for the physics student unafraid of a step up in rigor mathematically speaking. I worked the first 6 chapters followed by the 13th and 14th chapters on spinors/quantum gravity after having learned some differential geometry and found Walds writing to be very enriching.

[carlos correr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am going to use it again soon, then I will give more fruitful opinion.

[albin james · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gravity

There are wounds that stir up the force of gravity
A cold that will wipe the hope from your eyes
Young girl standing underneath the "El" train
Standing there, watching the trains go by ...
You think that nobody knows where you are, girl
You think that nobody knows how this feels
Alone, in a world of your own, there you are girl
The small things float to the top of gravity
Gravity
I'm telling you where it is
Gravity

We walk in easy snakes
Through the roulette rattling of the alley
And now the arson smell of moon polishes a newsstand
They empty the gas can, they watch the fire
If there are three girls running -
There are three girls running nowhere
From remedies that you call random
and we call by name
And ask them to explain why

I heard somebody
Be quiet, Don't say nothing
I thought I heard someone
Well we walk where we want to
there's nobody gonna be there
Nobody's there ...
Nobody

I could not say no to the light of my desire
I'm not asking so much
But you roll-call the passion
His lips ? -No
His back ? -No
His face? - No, no, no
I'm not asking so much..
I try to imagine another planet, another sun
Where I don't look like me
And everything I do matters
instead of there, where you are, girl
In your green paint with a pin to pull
At the fingertips of gravity
Gravity
I'm telling you where it is
Gravity.

- Rickie Lee Jones

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good times spent with this book as an undergrad. For about a year I don't think I was seen without it. Still, I feel I barely scratched the surface of it.

[DJ]

classical graduate text

[Ronald Lett · Rating 5 out of 5]

You will need a good understanding of differential geometry and topology, but this text will give you a full modern grounding in general relativity. It is kind of a sequel to "Gravitation". :D

[Haileyesus · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think it is so nice and large concept

[Filip Dul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Certainly one of the best books on general relativity: broad and deep.

If a physicist ever deserved a Nobel for a book, it’s Wald, and it’s this one.

[Hel Raeyza]

refreshing

[Lulu]

General relativity — for when you get really serious