Feynman Lectures On Gravitation (Frontiers in Physics) - Softcover

Feynman, Richard; Morinigo, Fernando; Wagner, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813340381 ISBN 13: 9780813340388

Publisher: CRC Press, 2002

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.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Feynman

Edition details

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813340381
• ISBN 13: 9780813340388
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 280