Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T23:16:53.093Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2010

Jerry B. Griffiths
Affiliation:
Loughborough University
Jiří Podolský
Affiliation:
Charles University, Prague
Get access

Summary

In the now extensive literature on general relativity and its related subjects, references abound to “known solutions” or even “well-known solutions” of Einstein's field equations. Yet, apart from a few familiar space-times, such as those of Schwarzschild, Kerr and Friedmann, often little more is widely known about such solutions than that they exist and can be expressed in terms of a particular line element using some standard coordinate system.

With the most welcome publication of the second edition of the “exact solutions” book of Stephani et al. (2003), an amazing number of solutions, and even families of solutions, have been identified and classified. This is of enormous benefit. However, when it comes to understanding the physical meaning of these solutions, the situation is much less satisfactory – even for some of the most fundamental ones.

Of course, there are now many excellent textbooks on general relativity which present the subject in a coherent way to students with a variety of primary interests. These always describe the basic properties of the Schwarzschild solution and usually a few others as well. Yet, beyond these, when trying to find out what is known about any particular exact solution, there is normally still no alternative to searching through original papers dating back many years and published in journals that are often not available locally or freely available on the internet. Proceeding in this way, it is possible to miss significant contributions or to repeat errors or unhelpful emphases.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Preface
  • Jerry B. Griffiths, Loughborough University, Jiří Podolský, Charles University, Prague
  • Book: Exact Space-Times in Einstein's General Relativity
  • Online publication: 04 February 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511635397.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Preface
  • Jerry B. Griffiths, Loughborough University, Jiří Podolský, Charles University, Prague
  • Book: Exact Space-Times in Einstein's General Relativity
  • Online publication: 04 February 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511635397.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Preface
  • Jerry B. Griffiths, Loughborough University, Jiří Podolský, Charles University, Prague
  • Book: Exact Space-Times in Einstein's General Relativity
  • Online publication: 04 February 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511635397.001
Available formats
×