300 Problems in Special and General Relativity

Book Preface

Einstein’s theories of special relativity and general relativity form a core part of today’s undergraduate (or master’s-level) physics curriculum. This is a supplementary problem book or student’s manual, consisting of 150 problems in each of special and general rela-tivity i.e., in total 300 problems. The problems have been collected, developed, tested, and refined by the authors over the past two decades from homework and exams given at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, starting in the late 1990s. They are a mixture of short-form and multipart extended problems, with hints provided where appro-priate. Complete solutions are elaborated for every problem, in a different section of the book; some solutions include brief discussions on their physical or historical significance. The extensive and fully worked out solutions are the main feature of the book and have been revised several times by the authors. Designed as a companion text to complement a main relativity textbook, it does not assume access to any specific textbook. This is a helpful resource for advanced students, for self-study, as a source of problems for university teaching assistants, or as an inspiration for instructors and examiners constructing problems for their lectures, homework, or exams.
mattias blennow is Associate Professor in Theoretical Astroparticle Physics at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. His research is mainly directed toward the physics of neutrinos and dark matter and physics beyond the Standard Model. He is the author of the textbook Mathematical Methods for Physics and Engineering (CRC Press, 2018). He has more than 15 years of experience in teaching and has taught special and general relativity both as a lecturer and as a teaching assistant.
tommy ohlsson is Professor of Theoretical Physics at KTH Royal Institute of Tech-nology, Stockholm, Sweden. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland, over several years. His main research field is theoretical par-ticle physics, especially neutrino physics and physics beyond the Standard Model. He has written the textbook Relativistic Quantum Physics: From Advanced Quantum Mechanics to Introductory Quantum Field Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2011). He has more than 25 years of university-level teaching experience in relativity theory and physics in general.