Weinberg's 1972 work, in his description, had two purposes. The first was practical to bring together and assess the wealth of data provided over the previous decade while realizing that newer data would come in even as the book was being printed. He hoped the comprehensive picture would prepare the reader and himself to that new data as it emerged. The second was to produce a textbook about general relativity in which geometric ideas were not given a starring role for (in his words) too great an emphasis on geometry can only obscure the deep connections between gravitation and the rest of physics.

· Preliminaries · The General Theory of Relativity · Applications of Feneral Relativity · Formal Developments · Cosmology

The textbook introduces students to basic geometric concepts, such as metrics, connections and curvature, before examining general relativity in more detail. It shows the observational evidence supporting the theory, and the description general relativity provides of black holes and cosmological spacetimes. --

General relativity and quantum mechanics have become the two central pillars of theoretical physics. Moreover, general relativity has important applications in astrophysics and high-energy particle physics. Covering the fundamentals of the subject, Principles of Cosmology and Gravitation describes the universe as revealed by observations and presents a theoretical framework to enable important cosmological formulae to be derived and numerical calculations performed. Avoiding elaborate formal discussions, the book presents a practical approach that focuses on the general theory of relativity. It examines different evolutionary models and the gravitational effects of massive bodies. The book also includes a large number of worked examples and problems, half with solutions.

Weinberg's 1972 work, in his description, had two purposes. The first was practical to bring together and assess the wealth of data provided over the previous decade while realizing that newer data would come in even as the book was being printed. He hoped the comprehensive picture would prepare the reader and himself to that new data as it emerged. The second was to produce a textbook about general relativity in which geometric ideas were not given a starring role for (in his words) too great an emphasis on geometry can only obscure the deep connections between gravitation and the rest of physics.

An introduction to Einstein's general theory of relativity, this work is structured so that interesting applications, such as gravitational lensing, black holes and cosmology, can be presented without the readers having to first learn the difficult mathematics of tensor calculus.

Basic to the entire theory and applications of black hole physics Global Aspects in Gravitation and Cosmology covers the topics needed to understand the current key issues in gravitation theory: cosmology and black holes. Emphasized is the basic theme that the very nature of the gravitationalfield is such that global features of space-time inevitably come into play whenever we try to understand and interpret this force in detail. After discussing the fundamental role played by global considerations in gravity and general relativity, Joshi points out the significant problems that remain.The key problem of which been the issue of quantum effects in strong gravity fields, an understanding of which is essential to formulate any quantum theory of gravity. This book will be beneficial to mathematicians and physicists.