--- product_id: 1698923 title: "Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity" price: "43 zł" currency: PLN in_stock: false reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.pl/products/1698923-gravity-an-introduction-to-einsteins-general-relativity store_origin: PL region: Poland --- # Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity **Price:** 43 zł **Availability:** ❌ Out of Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity - **How much does it cost?** 43 zł with free shipping - **Is it available?** Currently out of stock - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.pl](https://www.desertcart.pl/products/1698923-gravity-an-introduction-to-einsteins-general-relativity) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description The aim of this groundbreaking new book is to bring general relativity into the undergraduate curriculum and make this fundamental theory accessible to all physics majors. Using a "physics first" approach to the subject, renowned relativist James B. Hartle provides a fluent and accessible introduction that uses a minimum of new mathematics and is illustrated with a wealth of exciting applications. The emphasis is on the exciting phenomena of gravitational physics and the growing connection between theory and observation. The Global Positioning System, black holes, X-ray sources, pulsars, quasars, gravitational waves, the Big Bang, and the large scale structure of the universe are used to illustrate the widespread role of how general relativity describes a wealth of everyday and exotic phenomena. Review: Explanations are in detail, but confusing in some parts. - "This is an excellent introduction to general relativity with a hands-on approach that is based on physical situations of interest like black holes and the expanding universe. It fills a real gap in the literature for an undergraduate or graduate student course book" - Stephen Hawking Hartle's "Gravity" is a textbook for learning general relativity. On the back cover of the book, there are a lot of praises for the book from famous physicists including Stephen Hawking's. Overall, I enjoyed the book and the reading was beneficial. The book contains many topics with detailed explanations in more than 500 pages. Considering that, as the author says in the preface, the book aims at guiding undergraduate students to general relativity, its plentiful explanations are great merits. However, the book has some shortcomings. If you feel comfortable only with mathematics textbooks that are written logically and systematically, then the book can be uncomfortable for you. The book consists of three parts. The first part introduces the readers to the basics of relativity only with elementary mathematics. The second part is about applications of relativity. For example, the book explains how general relativity explains motions of solar system by showing that Newtonian mechanics is an approximation of general relativity that can explain things more accurately. In addition, light rays under gravitational field, gravitational waves, black holes, and cosmology are discussed under the relativistic point of view. But when we use general relativity in the first two parts to analyse real physical situations, that does not mean we solve problems directly from the Einstein equation. There is a special solution of the Einstein equation, called Schwarzschild metric. By applying this metric to situations like planets in solar system and black holes, we study those things. The third part introduces the Einstein equation and its related mathematics. However, even in this part, we don't solve the Einstein equation. Solving the Einstein equation explicitly seems to be a hard thing. As I mentioned, the book's explanation is confusing in many places. For example, it is when introducing new mathematical stuffs like scalar product in the first part, and Christoffel symbols and covariant derivatives in the third part. Before reading the book, I have read two relativity books, Peter Collier's, and Ellis and Williams's. In reading such parts, the experience of reading the two books were really helpful. In particular, Collier's book was good. For the third part, I just can give three or four stars. I think that the mathematics like covariant derivative and Riemann curvature tensor is neither easily explained nor dealt with in depth. I have a plan to read another relativity book like Foster and Nightingale's "A Short Course in General Relativity". But for the first two parts, although there are many confusing parts, I want to give them five stars. They contain many valuable topics. I want to give an example. Consider a non-rotating black hole. Then the geometry around the black hole is described by a global coordinate (t, r, theta, phi) with a metric called the Schwarzschild metric. The motion of a particle can be described by (t(time), r(time), theta(time), phi(time)). The particle has some energy and momentum. Suppose I am in a rocket moving around the black hole. My motion will be described by (t'(time), r'(time), theta'(time), phi'(time)). To me, the energy and momentum of the particle will not be the same with things under the black hole's point of view. The book teaches the readers how to calculate them. More than that, the explanation is conceptual and concrete. Reading the part was really enjoyable. Here are some other points. 1. When Hawking said "it fills a real gap in the literature for an undergraduate or graduate student course book.", I think that the gap is between freshmen physics textbooks containing special relativity and graduate textbooks like Wald's "General relativity". To read the book, you should know at least the basics in special relativity. 2. The book has nearly 600 pages. Most of the readers would not have enough time to read the whole book. The wise readers should choose what to read. There is an appendix entitled Pedagogical Strategy. It was helpful in planning my reading. I recommend the readers to use the appendix also. 3. There are some typos in the book. When you get stuck somewhere, it may be because the author is not so skillful in explaining the topic or because there is a typo. Assume the results, just skip, and move forward. 4. The variational principle for a free particle (with mass) says that the world line of a free particle between two timelike separated points extremizes the proper time between them. For a photon (that has no mass), we cannot say about proper time. Then, what is the principle for a photon that explains the world line of a photon? You may think that it is ds^2 = 0. But I think this is not enough. For energy and momentum to be conserved, there should be one more principle. Regarding this issue, the book doesn't seem to give the answer. 5. The good quality of the papers of the book saved a lot of my eye's fatigue. It doesn't reflect lights. I hope that other textbooks use this kind of papers. Review: The best introduction to Special and General Relativity - I used this book for my Relativity & Black Holes course at UCI, an upper-division undergrad intro to SR & GR. The book uses an experimental approach by leading with observations and consequences of the equations of relativity without rigorous derivation. This is counter to the standard approach in physics, which is usually to derive the equations of motion, then move on to application and comparison to observation. If you're a math grad eager to apply your knowledge of differential geometry/topology then this is not the book for you're looking for. It is designed for advanced undergrad physicists to get a handle on the ideas and consequences of Einsteins theory before considering the very mathematically complicated derivations. The problems are incredibly challenging and solutions are not easy to come by. This textbook is definitely a keeper. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #666,298 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #413 in Physics (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 89 Reviews | ## Images ![Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/31LGSESouXL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Explanations are in detail, but confusing in some parts. *by I***E on November 20, 2016* "This is an excellent introduction to general relativity with a hands-on approach that is based on physical situations of interest like black holes and the expanding universe. It fills a real gap in the literature for an undergraduate or graduate student course book" - Stephen Hawking Hartle's "Gravity" is a textbook for learning general relativity. On the back cover of the book, there are a lot of praises for the book from famous physicists including Stephen Hawking's. Overall, I enjoyed the book and the reading was beneficial. The book contains many topics with detailed explanations in more than 500 pages. Considering that, as the author says in the preface, the book aims at guiding undergraduate students to general relativity, its plentiful explanations are great merits. However, the book has some shortcomings. If you feel comfortable only with mathematics textbooks that are written logically and systematically, then the book can be uncomfortable for you. The book consists of three parts. The first part introduces the readers to the basics of relativity only with elementary mathematics. The second part is about applications of relativity. For example, the book explains how general relativity explains motions of solar system by showing that Newtonian mechanics is an approximation of general relativity that can explain things more accurately. In addition, light rays under gravitational field, gravitational waves, black holes, and cosmology are discussed under the relativistic point of view. But when we use general relativity in the first two parts to analyse real physical situations, that does not mean we solve problems directly from the Einstein equation. There is a special solution of the Einstein equation, called Schwarzschild metric. By applying this metric to situations like planets in solar system and black holes, we study those things. The third part introduces the Einstein equation and its related mathematics. However, even in this part, we don't solve the Einstein equation. Solving the Einstein equation explicitly seems to be a hard thing. As I mentioned, the book's explanation is confusing in many places. For example, it is when introducing new mathematical stuffs like scalar product in the first part, and Christoffel symbols and covariant derivatives in the third part. Before reading the book, I have read two relativity books, Peter Collier's, and Ellis and Williams's. In reading such parts, the experience of reading the two books were really helpful. In particular, Collier's book was good. For the third part, I just can give three or four stars. I think that the mathematics like covariant derivative and Riemann curvature tensor is neither easily explained nor dealt with in depth. I have a plan to read another relativity book like Foster and Nightingale's "A Short Course in General Relativity". But for the first two parts, although there are many confusing parts, I want to give them five stars. They contain many valuable topics. I want to give an example. Consider a non-rotating black hole. Then the geometry around the black hole is described by a global coordinate (t, r, theta, phi) with a metric called the Schwarzschild metric. The motion of a particle can be described by (t(time), r(time), theta(time), phi(time)). The particle has some energy and momentum. Suppose I am in a rocket moving around the black hole. My motion will be described by (t'(time), r'(time), theta'(time), phi'(time)). To me, the energy and momentum of the particle will not be the same with things under the black hole's point of view. The book teaches the readers how to calculate them. More than that, the explanation is conceptual and concrete. Reading the part was really enjoyable. Here are some other points. 1. When Hawking said "it fills a real gap in the literature for an undergraduate or graduate student course book.", I think that the gap is between freshmen physics textbooks containing special relativity and graduate textbooks like Wald's "General relativity". To read the book, you should know at least the basics in special relativity. 2. The book has nearly 600 pages. Most of the readers would not have enough time to read the whole book. The wise readers should choose what to read. There is an appendix entitled Pedagogical Strategy. It was helpful in planning my reading. I recommend the readers to use the appendix also. 3. There are some typos in the book. When you get stuck somewhere, it may be because the author is not so skillful in explaining the topic or because there is a typo. Assume the results, just skip, and move forward. 4. The variational principle for a free particle (with mass) says that the world line of a free particle between two timelike separated points extremizes the proper time between them. For a photon (that has no mass), we cannot say about proper time. Then, what is the principle for a photon that explains the world line of a photon? You may think that it is ds^2 = 0. But I think this is not enough. For energy and momentum to be conserved, there should be one more principle. Regarding this issue, the book doesn't seem to give the answer. 5. The good quality of the papers of the book saved a lot of my eye's fatigue. It doesn't reflect lights. I hope that other textbooks use this kind of papers. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The best introduction to Special and General Relativity *by R***B on January 18, 2014* I used this book for my Relativity & Black Holes course at UCI, an upper-division undergrad intro to SR & GR. The book uses an experimental approach by leading with observations and consequences of the equations of relativity without rigorous derivation. This is counter to the standard approach in physics, which is usually to derive the equations of motion, then move on to application and comparison to observation. If you're a math grad eager to apply your knowledge of differential geometry/topology then this is not the book for you're looking for. It is designed for advanced undergrad physicists to get a handle on the ideas and consequences of Einsteins theory before considering the very mathematically complicated derivations. The problems are incredibly challenging and solutions are not easy to come by. This textbook is definitely a keeper. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I think it's the best and more clear introductory book to general relativity... *by J***N on November 24, 2015* An excellent introduction to general relativity: it's well written, all the ideas are explained at an intuitive level and with an easy-to-understand language; furthermore no mathematical prerequisites of high level are requested. In particular, a first part is a review of special relativity: a not so brief and very good summary, useful to understand the use of the 4-vector notation, too. A successive part is committed to the general relativity foundations (the way which Einstein developed the idea in), the mathematical structure and the analysis of many observations (such as gravitational lensing, cosmic microwave background radiation, universe expansion, etc.) that give confirmations of the theory (with an additional introduction to some cosmological models). A final part is committed to Einstein equation: tensor analysis, curvature, covariant derivative are introduced at this point, and you'll be got up enough to understand all the concepts. Very good binding and hardcover: it's durable and solid, with a good value for money. ## Frequently Bought Together - Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity - Introduction to Quantum Mechanics --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.pl/products/1698923-gravity-an-introduction-to-einsteins-general-relativity](https://www.desertcart.pl/products/1698923-gravity-an-introduction-to-einsteins-general-relativity) --- *Product available on Desertcart Poland* *Store origin: PL* *Last updated: 2026-05-21*