"Moore's workbook makes
General Relativity accessible to undergraduates who have seen little or none of
the underlying mathematical framework. This is achieved not by watering
down the contents, but rather by systematically guiding readers to work
everything out themselves until they own the concepts and the mathematical
techniques."
-Sergio Picozzi, University of Maryland
"With its
clean organization, its direct and clear prose, and especially its pedagogically
effective workbook format, Moore's A General Relativity Workbook may
quickly become the new standard for upper division undergraduate courses in
General Relativity."
-John Mallinckrodt, Cal Poly Pomona
"Not
since Misner, Thorne & Wheeler has there been such a useful reference."
-Paul McKenna, Glasgow Caledonia University
General relativity, which lies at
the heart of contemporary physics, has recently become the focus of
a number of lively theoretical, experimental, and computational research
programs. As a result, undergraduates have
become increasingly excited to learn about the subject. A
General Relativity Workbook is a
textbook intended to support a one-semester upper division undergraduate
course on general relativity. Through its unique workbook-based design, it
enables students to develop a solid mastery of both the physics and the
supporting tensor calculus by pushing (and
guiding) them to work through the implications. Each chapter, which is
designed to correspond to one class
session, involves a short overview of the concepts without obscuring derivations
or details, followed by a series of boxes that guide students through the
process of working things out for
themselves. This active-learning approach enables students to develop
a more secure mastery of the material than more
traditional approaches. More than 350 homework
problems support further learning. This
book more strongly emphasizes the physics than many of its competitors, and
while it provides students a full
grounding in the supporting mathematics (unlike
certain
other competitors),
it introduces the mathematics gradually and in a
completely phys
ical context.
About the Author
Thomas A. Moore is a professor in the physics department of Pomona College.
He graduated from Carleton College in 1976, and earned an M. Phil. in 1978 and a
Ph. D. in 1981 from Yale University. He then taught at Carleton College and
Luther College before taking his current position at Pomona College in 1987,
where he won a Wig Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1991. He served as an
active member of the national Introductory University Physics Project (IUPP),
and has published a number of articles about astrophysical sources of
gravitational waves, detection of gravitational waves, and new approaches to
teaching physics. His previous books include A Traveler's Guide to
Spacetime (McGraw-Hill, 1995) on special relativity, and a six-volume
introductory calculus-based physics text called Six Ideas That Shaped
Physics (McGraw-Hill, 2003).
