Gravitation

In early April 1911 Albert Einstein arrived in Prague to become full professor of theoretical physics at the German part of Charles University. It was there, for the first time, that he concentrated primarily on the problem of gravitation. Before he left Prague in July 1912 he had submitted the paper “Relativität und Gravitation: Erwiderung auf eine Bemerkung von M. Abraham” in which he remarkably anticipated what a future theory of gravity should look like.

Bryce DeWitt, a student of Nobel Laureate Julian Schwinger, was himself one of the towering figures in 20th century physics, particularly renowned for his seminal contributions to quantum field theory, numerical relativity and quantum gravity. In late 1971 DeWitt gave a course on gravitation at Stanford University, leaving almost 400 pages of detailed handwritten notes. Written with clarity and authority, and edited by his former student Steven Christensen, these timeless lecture notes, containing material or expositions not found in any other textbooks, are a gem to be discovered or re-discovered by anyone seriously interested in the study of gravitational physics.