Feynman Lectures on Gravitation (Frontiers in Physics)

Feynman Lectures on Gravitation (Frontiers in Physics)

by RichardP.Feynman (Author), David Pines (Author), Fernando B . Morinigo (Author), WilliamWagner (Author), Brian F . Hatfield (Author)

Synopsis

The Feynman Lectures on Gravitation are based on notes prepared during a course on gravitational physics that Richard Feynman taught at Caltech during the 1962-63 academic year. For several years prior to these lectures, Feynman thought long and hard about the fundamental problems in gravitational physics, yet he published very little. These lectures represent a useful record of his viewpoints and some of his insights into gravity and its application to cosmology, superstars, wormholes, and gravitational waves at that particular time. The lectures also contain a number of fascinating digressions and asides on the foundations of physics and other issues.Characteristically, Feynman took an untraditional non-geometric approach to gravitation and general relativity based on the underlying quantum aspects of gravity. Hence, these lectures contain a unique pedagogical account of the development of Einstein's general theory of relativity as the inevitable result of the demand for a self-consistent theory of a massless spin-2 field (the graviton) coupled to the energy-momentum tensor of matter. This approach also demonstrates the intimate and fundamental connection between gauge invariance and the principle of equivalence.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
Publisher: Westview Press
Published: 30 May 2002

ISBN 10: 0813340381
ISBN 13: 9780813340388

Author Bio
d matter and nuclear physics, and to theoretical astrophysics. Editor of Perseus' Frontiers in Physics series and former editor of American Physical Society's Reviews of Modern Physics, Dr. Pines is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, a foreign member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Pines has received a number of awards, including the Eugene Feenberg Memorial Medal for Contributions to Many-Body Theory the P.A.M. Dirac Silver Medal for the Advancement of Theoretical Physics and the Friemann Prize in Condensed Matter Physics.