General Relativity

Rating:
Summary: A good mathematical introduction
Review: This book is really very useful for anybody who is interested in modern mathematical presentation of the General Relativity. It is a pity that the role of Hilbert's variational principle is underestimated -- look into a small book by Utiyama and you find a very elegant consize derivation of the Schwarzschild solution. R.Wald is wrong when he says that Friedmann has given the solution only for the closed Universe. In his second paper in 1924 (Z. Phys., 12, 326) A.Friedman has found the open, hyperboloid Universe, so ALL the solutions in Table 5.1 are rightfully referred to as Friedmann ones.

Rating:
Summary: One of the better books to learn gravitation theory
Review: This book was a little scary to read the first time I opened it. Abstract Indices all over. OMG, What does this upside down triangle mean? Where did this strange L come from? These are the sort of questions you will be asking yourself if you try to read this book without adequate preparation in Differential Geomtery. Sure Wald has 2 chapter devoted to this, but thats like asking you to learn all the vocabulary that you have in english from 5 little summary sheets. However once you do know soemthing about Riemannian Geomtery(an excellent elementary source is the book by Bishop and Goldberg "Tensor Analysis by Manifolds"), this book is a joy to read. Every explanation is crystal clear, and makes for a very enlightening experience overall. There's no need to read between the lines that some books expect you to, and Wald dosent insult his reader's intelligence either. This books is written for serious students of relativity, be it applied mathematicians or physicists. For the people willing to patiently read the book, and learn the details he presents, this book is probably the best preparation to general relativity. One complaint however is the noticeable shortage in exercises. And the ones supplied arent particularly difficult either. But all in all, an amazing read.

Rating:
Summary: One of best books in GR
Review: Wald's book is a milestone in GR literature. The book has demonstrated that the author is a genuine first class scholar with great writing talent. The book is presented with crystal clarity. It completely fulfils its purpose as an advance textbook for theoretical physics student or professionals.
I dislike some reviewer's comments that the book is too mathematical; this simply reflects their inability in understanding modern GR books. So my advice to those people is: don't blame this wonderful good book, but yourselves, and work hard . For anyone with serious interest in GR, Wald, MTW and Weinberg are indispensable.