Aimed at advanced undergraduates with background knowledge of classical mechanics and electricity and magnetism, this textbook presents both the particle dynamics relevant to general relativity, and the field dynamics necessary to understand the theory. Focusing on action extremization, the book develops the structure and predictions of general relativity by analogy with familiar physical systems. Topics ranging from classical field theory to minimal surfaces and relativistic strings are covered in a homogeneous manner. Nearly 150 exercises and numerous examples throughout the textbook enable...

There is an increasing need for undergraduate students in physics to have a core set of computational tools. Most problems in physics benefit from numerical methods, and many of them resist analytical solution altogether. This textbook presents numerical techniques for solving familiar physical problems where a complete solution is inaccessible using traditional mathematical methods. The numerical techniques for solving the problems are clearly laid out, with a focus on the logic and applicability of the method. The same problems are revisited multiple times using different numerical...