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Based on a course taught for years at Oxford, this book offers a concise exposition of the central ideas of general relativity. The focus is on the chain of reasoning that leads to the relativistic theory from the analysis of distance and time measurements in the presence of gravity, rather than on the underlying mathematical structure. Includes links to recent developments, including theoretical work and observational evidence, to encourage further study.
First published in 1987, this text offers concise but clear explanations and derivations to give readers a confident grasp of the chain of argument that leads from Newton’s laws through Lagrange’s equations and Hamilton’s principle, to Hamilton’s equations and canonical transformations. This new edition has been extensively revised and updated to include: A chapter on symplectic geometry and the geometric interpretation of some of the coordinate calculations. A more systematic treatment of the conections with the phase-plane analysis of ODEs; and an improved treatment of Euler angles. A greater emphasis on the links to special relativity and quantum theory showing how ideas from this classical subject link into contemporary areas of mathematics and theoretical physics. A wealth of examples show the subject in action and a range of exercises – with solutions – are provided to help test understanding.
The geometric approach to quantization was introduced by Konstant and Souriau more than 20 years ago. It has given valuable and lasting insights into the relationship between classical and quantum systems, and continues to be a popular research topic. The ideas have proved useful in pure mathematics, notably in representation theory, as well as in theoretical physics. The most recent applications have been in conformal field theory and in the Jones-Witten theory of knots. The successful original edition of this book was published in 1980. Now it has been completely revised and extensively rewritten. The presentation has been simplified and many new examples have been added. The material on field theory has been expanded.
This book provides readers with the tools needed to understand the physical basis of special relativity and will enable a confident mathematical understanding of Minkowski's picture of space-time. It features a large number of examples and exercises, ranging from the rather simple through to the more involved and challenging. Coverage includes acceleration and tensors and has an emphasis on space-time diagrams.
This book provides readers with the tools needed to understand the physical basis of special relativity and will enable a confident mathematical understanding of Minkowski's picture of space-time. It features a large number of examples and exercises, ranging from the rather simple through to the more involved and challenging. Coverage includes acceleration and tensors and has an emphasis on space-time diagrams.
This book contains a series of chapters by leading researchers and practitioners on community engagement approaches in the field of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. It presents existing and emerging community engagement models in various parts of the world which could serve as effective models for governments keen to work with community leaders to manage and reduce the terrorist threat. The book emphasizes the strength of communities as central to government approaches in countering violent extremism.
Presents the proceedings of the recently held conference at the University of Plymouth. Papers describe recent work by leading researchers in twistor theory and cover a wide range of subjects, including conformal invariants, integral transforms, Einstein equations, anti-self-dual Riemannian 4-manifolds, deformation theory, 4-dimensional conformal structures, and more.;The book is intended for complex geometers and analysts, theoretical physicists, and graduate students in complex analysis, complex differential geometry, and mathematical physics.
This volume contains the proceedings of the twelfth triannual International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation, the premier conference for presentation and discussion of new ideas in relativity and cosmology. The volume will contain the invited talks as well as short reports on the parallel workshops that took place at the meeting. It will be essential reading for all research workers in relativity, cosmology and astrophysics.
Many of the familiar integrable systems of equations are symmetry reductions of self-duality equations on a metric or on a Yang-Mills connection. For example, the Korteweg-de Vries and non-linear Schrodinger equations are reductions of the self-dual Yang-Mills equation. This book explores in detail the connections between self-duality and integrability, and also the application of twistor techniques to integrable systems. It supports two central theories: that the symmetries of self-duality equations provide a natural classification scheme for integrable systems; and that twistor theory provides a uniform geometric framework for the study of Backlund transformations, the inverse scattering method, and other such general constructions of integrability theory. The book will be useful to researchers and graduate students in mathematical physics.