Gravitation
#1163 of 2,654 all-time
Gravitation
Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler
6 people recommended it in 5 threads, 2017–2022.
2 commenters pushed back on it — worth reading the threads.
What people on Hacker News said
Didn’t read the whole thing, but this book taught me a tensor is just a higher-order linear function. Who knew? Most physicists give really crappy explanations of tensors.
Also I love that this book, affectionately known as the “phone book”, is so heavy that one imagines spacetime curving around it.
Feynman's PhD advisor, John Wheeler, together with Charles Misner and Kip Thorns, wrote a textbook on general relativity called Gravitation. It's gigantic, 1200 pages, and its tone is similar to the Feynman lectures.
And it is at least partially a math textbook, as it includes a fairly complete introduction to Riemannian geometry.
Where it comes up
- Ask HN: Which books do you consider real gems in your field of work/study? 2022 · 2 recommendations
- Ask HN: The book that did it for you in math and/or CS? 2022 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: Are there books for mathematics like Feynman's lectures on physics? 2019 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: What's one book that changed your life? 2018 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: What books have made the biggest impact on your mental models? 2017 · 1 recommendation