This page provides links to various items you can download and/or view. - A viewable sample of the textbook in PDF format that shows some of the opening material and a few sample chapters.
- The textbook's first chapter in PDF format. This chapter provides a useful overview of general relativity for students who have had some basic mechanics and a bit of special relativity. You are free to use the last two pages as a handout to go with an introductory lecture on general relativity.
- The Diagonal Metric worksheet. This worksheet helps one quickly and accurately calculate Christoffel symbols and the Ricci tensor for any diagonal metric. This worksheet is not copyrighted and may be freely used and distributed.
- The Off-Diagonal Metric Worksheet. This worksheet is like the one above, except that it handles metrics with one off-diagonal metric element. It is similarly in the public domain. (See the author's article in the May 2016 issue of American Journal of Physics for a description of how to use this worksheet.)
- The BHOrbits application. This program plots the trajectory of a particle with nonzero mass orbiting a
(1) spinning compact object (Kerr spacetime)
(2) A non-spinning spherical object (Schwarzschild spacetime: set a = 0)
(3) A Newtonian spherical object (uncheck "GR on"
This is freeware and may be freely used and distributed.
Download a "zipped" version for Mac OS X or Windows.
- The KerrPlot program. This program plots the (complicated) effective radial potential function for a particle with nonzero rest mass orbiting in Kerr spacetime, in either the form discussed in chapter 37 or that discussed in chapter 39. This can be used to predict the type of trajectories that are possible, find circular orbit radii, and explore negative-energy trajectories.
Download a "zipped" version for Mac OS X or Windows.
Instructors who are using the book in a course can request access to the instructor's solutions manual, which contains solutions to all the box exercises and homework problems. Go to the professors' resources page at University Science Books, which gives you instructions on how to request a desk copy. You can request the solutions manual at the same time. Here is a link to a page describing errata in the books' various printings. Finally, here is a link to a page describing the new Online Student Manual. | |
