Relativity: Special, General, and Cosmological

Rating:
Summary: Very good
Review: I think both undergraduates and graduates students in physics will find this text enjoyable and enlightening. The sections on general relativity and cosmology are, I think, a little less thorough and complicated than those in Wald or Shultz, though I've only briefly perused those other texts. (GR is still plenty abstract and mathematical in Rindler.) The end of chapter exercises are well-chosen and lead the reader to understand the material. Rindler does an excellent job of keep physical insight at the forefront of his discussions. He points out and resolves a number of interesting paradoxes, and he mentions a number of interesting modern experiments when relevant.

Rating:
Summary: Whoosh
Review: Professor Rindler explains the concepts with clarity and rigour while minimising the complexities of the notation and formulae. His ability to put ideas into words is outstanding. If you have heard the tales of trains that whoosh past in the ether, and are still none the wiser; or have wondered how the background radiation that set out on its way at the speed of light when the world was a smaller simpler place is only now reaching us, this book will enlighten you. Even for those whose maths cannot keep up it should be worthwhile, stimulating even, to read the sections at the beginning of each chapter, and those elsewhere light in formulae. For those willing to tackle the exercises he is perhaps a little too generous with the hints.