This book is composed of two parts: First part describes basics in numerical relativity, that is, the formulations and methods for a solution of Einstein's equation and general relativistic matter field equations. This part will be helpful for beginners of numerical relativity who would like to understand the content of numerical relativity and its background. The second part focuses on the application of numerical relativity. A wide variety of scientific numerical results are introduced focusing in particular on the merger of binary neutron stars and black holes.

Special relativity provides the foundations of our knowledge of space and time. Without it, our understanding of the world, and its place in the universe, would be unthinkable. This book gives a concise, elementary, yet exceptionally modern, introduction to special relativity. It is a gentle yet serious 'first encounter', in that it conveys a true understanding rather than purely reports the basic facts. Only very elementary mathematical knowledge is needed to master it (basic high-school maths), yet it will leave the reader with a sound understanding of the subject. Special Relativity: A First Encounter starts with a broad historical introduction and motivation of the basic notions. The central chapters are dedicated to special relativity, mainly following Einstein's historical route. Later chapters turn to various applications in all parts of physics and everyday life. Unlike other books on the subject, the current status of the experimental foundations of special relativity is accurately reported and the experiments explained. This book will appeal to anyone wanting a introduction to the subject, as well as being background reading for students beginning a course in physics.

Divided into three parts, this volume focuses on a summary of how relativity theories were born. It also discusses the ramifications of general relativity, such as black holes, space-time singularities, gravitational waves, the large scale structure of the cosmos, and more. It includes summaries of radical changes in the notions of space and time.

In early April 1911 Albert Einstein arrived in Prague to become full professor of theoretical physics at the German part of Charles University. It was there, for the first time, that he concentrated primarily on the problem of gravitation. Before he left Prague in July 1912 he had submitted the paper “Relativität und Gravitation: Erwiderung auf eine Bemerkung von M. Abraham” in which he remarkably anticipated what a future theory of gravity should look like. At the occasion of the Einstein-in-Prague centenary an international meeting was organized under a title inspired by Einstein's last paper from the Prague period: "Relativity and Gravitation, 100 Years after Einstein in Prague". The main topics of the conference included: classical relativity, numerical relativity, relativistic astrophysics and cosmology, quantum gravity, experimental aspects of gravitation and conceptual and historical issues. The conference attracted over 200 scientists from 31 countries, among them a number of leading experts in the field of general relativity and its applications. This volume includes abstracts of the plenary talks and full texts of contributed talks and articles based on the posters presented at the conference. These describe primarily original results of the authors. Full texts of the plenary talks are included in the volume "General Relativity, Cosmology and Astrophysics--Perspectives 100 Years after Einstein in Prague", eds. J. Bičák and T. Ledvinka, published also by Springer Verlag.

'The authors provide an up-to-date, well-organised background and essential elements of supergravity notions as well as all relevant aspects of Chern-Simons forms in gravitation. The book is a self-contained, informative, and much-needed broad introduction into the latest quantum gravity concepts, with a main focus on Chern-Simons gravity and supersymmetry … The book represents a comprehensive and systematic pedagogical exposition on gravitational Chern-Simons (Super)gravity theories, their applications, together with a selection of related recent developments in the field.'Contemporary PhysicsThis book grew out of a set of lecture notes on gravitational Chern-Simons (CS) theories developed over the past decade for several schools and different audiences including graduate students and researchers.CS theories are gauge-invariant theories that can include gravity consistently. They are only defined in odd dimensions and represent a very special class of theories in the Lovelock family. Lovelock gravitation theories are the natural extensions of General Relativity for dimensions greater than four that yield second-order field equations for the metric. These theories also admit local supersymmetric extensions where supersymmetry is an off-shell symmetry of the action, as in a standard gauge theory.Apart from the arguments of mathematical elegance and beauty, the gravitational CS actions are exceptionally endowed with physical attributes that suggest the viability of a quantum interpretation. CS theories are gauge-invariant, scale-invariant and background independent; they have no dimensional coupling constants. All constants in the Lagrangian are fixed rational coefficients that cannot be adjusted without destroying gauge invariance. This exceptional status of CS systems makes them classically interesting to study, and quantum mechanically intriguing and promising.

This volume offers an integrated understanding of how the theory of general relativity gained momentum after Einstein had formulated it in 1915. Chapters focus on the early reception of the theory in physics and philosophy and on the systematic questions that emerged shortly after Einstein's momentous discovery. They are written by physicists, historians of science, and philosophers, and were originally presented at the conference titled Thinking About Space and Time: 100 Years of Applying and Interpreting General Relativity, held at the University of Bern from September 12-14, 2017. By establishing the historical context first, and then moving into more philosophical chapters, this volume will provide readers with a more complete understanding of early applications of general relativity (e.g., to cosmology) and of related philosophical issues. Because the chapters are often cross-disciplinary, they cover a wide variety of topics related to the general theory of relativity. These include: Heuristics used in the discovery of general relativity Mach's Principle The structure of Einstein's theory Cosmology and the Einstein world Stability of cosmological models The metaphysical nature of spacetime The relationship between spacetime and dynamics The Geodesic Principle Symmetries Thinking About Space and Time will be a valuable resource for historians of science and philosophers who seek a deeper knowledge of the (early and later) uses of general relativity, as well as for physicists and mathematicians interested in exploring the wider historical and philosophical context of Einstein's theory.

The aim of this two-volume title is to give a comprehensive review of one hundred years of development of general relativity and its scientific influences. This unique title provides a broad introduction and review to the fascinating and profound subject of general relativity, its historical development, its important theoretical consequences, gravitational wave detection and applications to astrophysics and cosmology. The series focuses on five aspects of the theory: The first three topics are covered in Volume 1 and the remaining two are covered in Volume 2. While this is a two-volume title, it is designed so that each volume can be a standalone reference volume for the related topic.