1

How can I learn General Relativity? Am a undergrad student, who happens to be interested in general relativity. I want to learn it by heart. What are the prerequisites for it?

As a fresher who just got into undergrad, what resources are best for me?

Feel free to suggest any YouTube playlist which can help me understand the math of relativity and any book that teaches me from scratch presuming I know nothing.

Qmechanic
  • 201,751
  • Leonard Susskind's continuing education lectures at Stanford would be a good start IMO. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9YY-u_YWqQQQKEP9zn5J2YvRnBGR13DR – m4r35n357 Nov 01 '23 at 20:09
  • General Relativity is basically differential geometry.We can write the tensor ,which describes the spacetime curvature, as a 4x4 matrix then we can use up the ideas of differential geometry to that matrix. – Cerise Nov 01 '23 at 20:20
  • 2
    Essentially a dupe of: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/14074/25301, https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/363/25301, https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/537958/25301, https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/217207/25301, https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/164325/25301, etc – Kyle Kanos Nov 01 '23 at 21:18
  • @KyleKanos I had a quick look and most of those answers are just pimping the usual list of expensive and advanced books. If anyone is wondering whether GR is for them, my recommendation is head & shoulders about those canned answers. In any case, the OP specifically requests video resources. – m4r35n357 Nov 02 '23 at 09:25

1 Answers1

-1

Learn Differential geometry and tensor analysis. After that, GR is little more than calculating a derivative, guessing a field equation like R^mu*nu=0 for the meteic tensor. It's not hard like particles. However if you want to include Euler rotations, the metric must be 7×7... more with spin. Hope it helps.. I took as an UG and got A's As far as I know The Kerr solution is the only one with rotation and allows only one degree of rotation. I think Bohr may have proposed his Correspondence Principle with that in mind, as the Kerr metric does not reduce to the Euler Hamiltonian of Classical mechanics... which works really well As for books..I startedcwith elementary algebra and followed the path to differential geometry. Texts on Classical Mechanics usually have sections on Special and General Relativity. Keep at it!!