Introduction to General Relativity and Gravitation

Undergraduate

An introduction to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Topics: review of special relativity and spacetime diagrams; equivalence principle; coordinates and four vectors; the spacetime metric; particle motion from a variational principle, the geodesic equation; spacetime physics; redshift and time dilation in the solar system, gravitational lenses, black holes, the expanding universe, gravitational waves, time machines (closed timelike curves); the field equations of General Relativity, connecting spacetime curvature to energy and momentum.