Remo Ruffini - Böcker

The third edition of this classic textbook is a quantitative introduction for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. It gently guides students from Newton's gravitational theory to special relativity, and then to the relativistic theory of gravitation. General relativity is approached from several perspectives: as a theory constructed by analogy with Maxwell's electrodynamics, as a relativistic generalization of Newton's theory, and as a theory of curved spacetime. The authors provide a concise overview of the important concepts and formulas, coupled with the experimental results underpinning the latest research in the field. Numerous exercises in Newtonian gravitational theory and Maxwell's equations help students master essential concepts for advanced work in general relativity, while detailed spacetime diagrams encourage them to think in terms of four-dimensional geometry. Featuring comprehensive reviews of recent experimental and observational data, the text concludes with chapters on cosmology and the physics of the Big Bang and inflation.

This book contains a set of articles based on a session of the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held in San Francisco in February, 1974. The reason for the meeting arose from the need to communicate to the largest possible scientific community the dramatic advances which have been made in recent years in the understanding of collapsed objects: neutron stars and black holes. Thanks to an unprecedented resonance between X-ray, y-ray, radio and optical astronomy and important new theoretical developments in relativistic astro­ physics, a new deep understanding has been acquired of the physical processes oc­ curring in the late stages of evolution of stars. This knowledge may be one of the greatest conquests of man's understanding of nature in this century. This book aims to give an essential and up-to-date view in this field. The analysis of the physics and astrophysics of neutron stars and black holes is here attacked from both theoretical and experimental points of view. In the experimental field we range from the reviews and catalogues of galactic X-ray sources (R. Gursky and E. Schreier) and pulsars (E. Groth) to the observations of the optical counter­ part of X-ray sources (P. Boynton) to finally the recently discovered gamma-ray bursts (I. Strong) and pulse astronomy R. B. Partridge).

This book contains a set of articles based on a session of the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held in San Francisco in February, 1974. The reason for the meeting arose from the need to communicate to the largest possible scientific community the dramatic advances which have been made in recent years in the understanding of collapsed objects: neutron stars and black holes. Thanks to an unprecedented resonance between X-ray, y-ray, radio and optical astronomy and important new theoretical developments in relativistic astro­ physics, a new deep understanding has been acquired of the physical processes oc­ curring in the late stages of evolution of stars. This knowledge may be one of the greatest conquests of man's understanding of nature in this century. This book aims to give an essential and up-to-date view in this field. The analysis of the physics and astrophysics of neutron stars and black holes is here attacked from both theoretical and experimental points of view. In the experimental field we range from the reviews and catalogues of galactic X-ray sources (R. Gursky and E. Schreier) and pulsars (E. Groth) to the observations of the optical counter­ part of X-ray sources (P. Boynton) to finally the recently discovered gamma-ray bursts (I. Strong) and pulse astronomy R. B. Partridge).

A meeting on "Astrophysics. from Spacelab" was held at the Internatio- nal Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, in the Autumn of 1976. Scope of the meeting was to bring to the attention of an increasing number of physi- cists and astrophysicists, including scientists from developing countries, the new facil ities made available by the combination of the Shuttle and the Spacelab programmes. This book starts from that meeting and includes, together with reports presented in Trieste, duly updated, a few additional reviews on selected to- pi cs. In the first part, D.J.Shapland and G.Giampalmo (liThe Shuttle and the Spacelab") present the design and the programmatic data of these advanced transportation systems and orbital laboratories. Vittorio Manno introduces the scientific programmes coordinated and led to execution by the European Space Agency ("ESA Programmes in Astronomy and Astrophys i cs "). J. D.Rosendha 1 (liThe NASA Programmes in Astronomy and Astrophysics") summarizes the activi- ties in solar physics, high-energy astrophysics and astronomy planned in the United States of America by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as well as the expected use of the space shuttle and spacelab in their first year of operation.

Since 1975, the triennial Marcel Grossmann Meetings have been organized in order to provide opportunities for discussing recent advances in gravitation, general relativity and relativisitic field theories, emphasizing mathematical foundations, physical predictions, and experimental tests.The proceedings of the Seventh Marcel Grossmann Meeting include the invited papers given at the plenary sessions, the summaries of the parallel sessions, the contributed papers presented at the parallel sessions, and the evening public lectures.The authors of these papers discuss many of the recent theoretical, observational, and experimental developments that have significant implications for the fields of physics, cosmology, and relativistic astrophysics.

Since 1975, the Marcel Grossmann Meetings have been organized to provide opportunities for discussing recent advances in gravitation, general relativity and relativistic field theories, emphasizing mathematical foundations, physical predictions and experimental tests. The objective of these meetings is to facilitate exchange among scientists that may deepen our understanding of space-time structures and to review the status of ongoing experiments aimed at testing Einstein's theory of gravitation from either the ground or space.The Eighth Marcel Grossmann Meeting took place on 22-27 June, 1997, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. The scientific program included 25 plenary talks and 40 parallel sessions during which 400 papers were presented. The papers that appear in this book cover all aspects of gravitation, from mathematical issues to recent observations and experiments.

This unique volume is a collection of papers on various problems in astrophysics and cosmology — from planetary motion to the arrow of time — that are closely linked by the common spirit, technique and methodology of chaos.

This volume is dedicated to Riccardo Giacconi for his sixty-fifth birthday, on the occasion of his being awarded a “Laurea Honoris Causa” in physics at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. A meeting was held in his honor, and presentations were given that reflected the state-of-the-art of research on subjects related to Giacconi's scientific interests and achievements through the decades. This volume is based upon the papers presented at that meeting. It provides a tribute to Riccardo Giacconi for his outstanding contributions towards opening up the entire field of high energy astrophysics.

Many events were organized all over the world in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Enrico Fermi, covering his activities in particle physics, nuclear physics, statistical mechanics and quantum statistics. A workshop was held at the University of Rome and the ICRA Center in Pescara, Italy, in October 2001. The focus was on the influence of Fermi on astrophysics and general relativity, which have acquired special scientific meaning owing to the fast developments in the field of relativistic astrophysics. Paradoxically, the major activities of Fermi in those areas were clustered at the beginning and at the end of his scientific career. The meeting had a novel format. In each session a selected paper of Fermi was discussed in terms of both its historical context and later developments related to it; these papers and their commentaries are included in the proceedings. The presentation was followed by an in-depth analysis of developments by active scientists working in each field; this analysis also appears in the proceedings. In some cases, contributions from young researchers about more recent PhD theses relevant to the topic at hand concluded the session.

The three volumes of the proceedings of MG15 give a broad view of all aspects of gravitational physics and astrophysics, from mathematical issues to recent observations and experiments. The scientific program of the meeting included 40 morning plenary talks over 6 days, 5 evening popular talks and nearly 100 parallel sessions on 71 topics spread over 4 afternoons. These proceedings are a representative sample of the very many oral and poster presentations made at the meeting.Part A contains plenary and review articles and the contributions from some parallel sessions, while Parts B and C consist of those from the remaining parallel sessions. The contents range from the mathematical foundations of classical and quantum gravitational theories including recent developments in string theory, to precision tests of general relativity including progress towards the detection of gravitational waves, and from supernova cosmology to relativistic astrophysics, including topics such as gamma ray bursts, black hole physics both in our galaxy and in active galactic nuclei in other galaxies, and neutron star, pulsar and white dwarf astrophysics. Parallel sessions touch on dark matter, neutrinos, X-ray sources, astrophysical black holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs, binary systems, radiative transfer, accretion disks, quasars, gamma ray bursts, supernovas, alternative gravitational theories, perturbations of collapsed objects, analog models, black hole thermodynamics, numerical relativity, gravitational lensing, large scale structure, observational cosmology, early universe models and cosmic microwave background anisotropies, inhomogeneous cosmology, inflation, global structure, singularities, chaos, Einstein-Maxwell systems, wormholes, exact solutions of Einstein's equations, gravitational waves, gravitational wave detectors and data analysis, precision gravitational measurements, quantum gravity and loop quantum gravity, quantum cosmology, strings and branes, self-gravitating systems, gamma ray astronomy, cosmic rays and the history of general relativity.

The proceedings of MG16 give a broad view of all aspects of gravitational physics and astrophysics, from mathematical issues to recent observations and experiments. The scientific program of the meeting included 46 plenary presentations, 3 public lectures, 5 round tables and 81 parallel sessions arranged during the intense six-day online meeting. All talks were recorded and are available on the ICRANet YouTube channel at the following link: www.icranet.org/video_mg16.These proceedings are a representative sample of the very many contributions made at the meeting. They contain 383 papers, among which 14 come from the plenary sessions.The material represented in these proceedings cover the following topics: accretion, active galactic nuclei, alternative theories of gravity, black holes (theory, observations and experiments), binaries, boson stars, cosmic microwave background, cosmic strings, dark energy and large scale structure, dark matter, education, exact solutions, early universe, fundamental interactions and stellar evolution, fast transients, gravitational waves, high energy physics, history of relativity, neutron stars, precision tests, quantum gravity, strong fields, and white dwarf; all of them represented by a large number of contributions.The online e-proceedings are published in an open access format.

In 1975 the Marcel Grossmann Meetings were established by Remo Ruffini and Abdus Salam to provide a forum for discussion of recent advances in gravitation, general relativity, and relativistic field theories. In these meetings, which are held once every three years, every aspect of research is emphasized - mathematical foundations, physical predictions, and numerical and experimental investigations. The major objective of these meetings is to facilitate exchange among scientists, so as to deepen our understanding of the structure of space-time and to review the status of both the ground-based and the space-based experiments aimed at testing the theory of gravitation.The Marcel Grossmann Meetings have grown under the guidance of an International Organizing Committee and a large International Coordinating Committee. The first two meetings, MG1 and MG2, were held in Trieste (1975, 1979). A most memorable MG3 (1982) was held in Shanghai and represented the first truly international scientific meeting in China after the so-called Cultural Revolution. Three years later MG4 was held in Rome (1985). It was at MG4 that ';astroparticle physics'; was born.MGIXMM was organized by the International Organizing Committee composed of D Blair, Y Choquet-Bruhat, D Christodoulou, T Damour, J Ehlers, F Everitt, Fang Li Zhi, S Hawking, Y Ne'eman, R Ruffini (chair), H Sato, R Sunyaev, and S Weinberg. Essential to the organization was an International Coordinating Committee of 135 members from scientific institutions of 54 countries. MGIXMM was attended by 997 scientists of 69 nationalities. It took place on 2-8 July 2000 at the University of Rome, Italy. The scientific programs included 60 plenary and review talks, as well as talks in 88 parallel sessions. The three volumes of the proceedings of MGIXMM present a rather authoritative view of relativistic astrophysics, which is becoming one of the priorities in scientific endeavour. The papers appearing in these volumes cover all aspects of gravitation, from mathematical issues to recent observations and experiments. Their intention is to give a complete picture of our current understanding of gravitational theory at the turn of the millennium.The Marcel Grossmann Individual Awards for this meeting were presented to Cecille and Bryce DeWitt, Riccardo Giacconi and Roger Penrose, while the Institutional Award went to the Solvay Institute, accepted on behalf of the Institute by Jacques Solvay and Ilya Prigogine. The acceptance speeches are also included in the proceedings.

This book gives a detailed, up-to-date account of the Lense-Thirring effect and its implications for physics and astrophysics. Starting from a profound intuition of Lense and Thirring in 1918, based on a simple solution to the linearized Einstein field equations, this has emerged in the past four decades as a phenomenon of extraordinary importance in cosmology, radio jets in quasars, and the physics of neutron stars and black holes, besides leading to some of the most sophisticated experiments ever performed in the space surrounding our planet. The book contains the contributions presented at the “Third William Fairbank Meeting”, which have been expanded by adding a complete set of classical and prominent contemporary papers on this subject and a general introduction by R Ruffini.

The Marcel Grossmann meetings were conceived to promote theoretical understanding in the fields of physics, mathematics, astronomy and astrophysics and to direct future technological, observational, and experimental efforts. They review recent developments in gravitation and general relativity, with major emphasis on mathematical foundations and physical predictions. Their main objective is to bring together scientists from diverse backgrounds and their range of topics is broad, from more abstract classical theory and quantum gravity and strings to more concrete relativistic astrophysics observations and modeling.This Tenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting was organized by an international committee composed of D Blair, Y Choquet-Bruhat, D Christodoulou, T Damour, J Ehlers, F Everitt, Fang Li Zhi, S Hawking, Y Ne'eman, R Ruffini (chair), H Sato, R Sunyaev, and S Weinberg and backed by an international coordinating committee of about 135 members from scientific institutions representing 54 countries. The scientific program included 29 morning plenary talks during 6 days, and 57 parallel sessions over five afternoons, during which roughly 500 papers were presented.These three volumes of the proceedings of MG10 give a broad view of all aspects of gravitation, from mathematical issues to recent observations and experiments.

This unique volume contains a selection of more than 80 of Yuval Ne'eman's papers, which represent his huge contribution to a large number of aspects of theoretical physics. The works span more than four decades, from unitary symmetry and quarks to questions of complexity in biological systems and evolution of scientific theories.In keeping with the major role Ne'eman has played in theoretical physics over the last 40 years, a collaboration of very distinguished scientists enthusiastically took part in this volume. Their commentary supplies a clear framework and background for appreciating Yuval Ne'eman's significant discoveries and pioneering contributions.

The Marcel Grossmann Meetings are three-yearly forums that meet to discuss recent advances in gravitation, general relativity and relativistic field theories, emphasizing their mathematical foundations, physical predictions and experimental tests. These meetings aim to facilitate the exchange of ideas among scientists, to deepen our understanding of space-time structures, and to review the status of ongoing experiments and observations testing Einstein's theory of gravitation either from ground or space-based experiments. Since the first meeting in 1975 in Trieste, Italy, which was established by Remo Ruffini and Abdus Salam, the range of topics presented at these meetings has gradually widened to accommodate issues of major scientific interest, and attendance has grown to attract more than 900 participants from over 80 countries.This proceedings volume of the eleventh meeting in the series, held in Berlin in 2006, highlights and records the developments and applications of Einstein's theory in diverse areas ranging from fundamental field theories to particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology, made possible by unprecedented technological developments in experimental and observational techniques from space, ground and underground observatories. It provides a broad sampling of the current work in the field, especially relativistic astrophysics, including many reviews by leading figures in the research community.

The four volumes of the proceedings of MG14 give a broad view of all aspects of gravitational physics and astrophysics, from mathematical issues to recent observations and experiments. The scientific program of the meeting included 35 morning plenary talks over 6 days, 6 evening popular talks and 100 parallel sessions on 84 topics over 4 afternoons.Volume A contains plenary and review talks ranging from the mathematical foundations of classical and quantum gravitational theories including recent developments in string theory, to precision tests of general relativity including progress towards the detection of gravitational waves, and from supernova cosmology to relativistic astrophysics, including topics such as gamma ray bursts, black hole physics both in our galaxy and in active galactic nuclei in other galaxies, and neutron star, pulsar and white dwarf astrophysics.The remaining volumes include parallel sessions which touch on dark matter, neutrinos, X-ray sources, astrophysical black holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs, binary systems, radiative transfer, accretion disks, quasars, gamma ray bursts, supernovas, alternative gravitational theories, perturbations of collapsed objects, analog models, black hole thermodynamics, numerical relativity, gravitational lensing, large scale structure, observational cosmology, early universe models and cosmic microwave background anisotropies, inhomogeneous cosmology, inflation, global structure, singularities, chaos, Einstein-Maxwell systems, wormholes, exact solutions of Einstein's equations, gravitational waves, gravitational wave detectors and data analysis, precision gravitational measurements, quantum gravity and loop quantum gravity, quantum cosmology, strings and branes, self-gravitating systems, gamma ray astronomy, cosmic rays and the history of general relativity.

Marcel Grossmann Meetings are formed to further the development of General Relativity by promoting theoretical understanding in the fields of physics, mathematics, astronomy and astrophysics and to direct future technological, observational, and experimental efforts. In these meetings are discussed recent developments in classical and quantum gravity, general relativity and relativistic astrophysics, with major emphasis on mathematical foundations and physical predictions, with the main objective of gathering scientists from diverse backgrounds for deepening the understanding of spacetime structure and reviewing the status of test-experiments for Einstein's theory of gravitation. The range of topics is broad, going from the more abstract classical theory, quantum gravity and strings, to the more concrete relativistic astrophysics observations and modeling.The three volumes of the proceedings of MG12 give a broad view of all aspects of gravitational physics and astrophysics, from mathematical issues to recent observations and experiments. The scientific program of the meeting includes 29 plenary talks stretched over 6 mornings, and 74 parallel sessions over 5 afternoons. Volume A contains plenary and review talks ranging from the mathematical foundations of classical and quantum gravitational theories including recent developments in string theories, to precision tests of general relativity including progress towards the detection of gravitational waves, to relativistic astrophysics including such topics as gamma ray bursts, black hole physics both in our galaxy, in active galactic nuclei and in other galaxies, neutron stars, pulsar astrophysics, gravitational lensing effects, neutrino physics and ultra high energy cosmic rays. The rest of the volumes include parallel sessions on dark matter, neutrinos, X-ray sources, astrophysical black holes, neutron stars, binary systems, radiative transfer, accretion disks, alternative gravitational theories, perturbations of collapsed objects, analog models, black hole thermodynamics, cosmic background radiation & observational cosmology, numerical relativity & algebraic computing, gravitational lensing, variable ';constants'; of nature, large scale structure, topology of the universe, brane-world cosmology, early universe models & cosmic microwave background anisotropies, inhomogeneous cosmology, inflation, gamma ray burst modeling, supernovas, global structure, singularities, cosmic censorship, chaos, Einstein-Maxwell systems, inertial forces, gravitomagnetism, wormholes & time machines, exact solutions of Einstein's equations, gravitational waves, gravitational wave detectors & data analysis, precision gravitational measurements, history of relativity, quantum gravity & loop quantum gravity, Casimir effect, quantum cosmology, strings & branes, self-gravitating systems, gamma ray astronomy, cosmic rays, gamma ray bursts and quasars.

The Marcel Grossmann Meetings seek to further the development of the foundations and applications of Einstein's general relativity by promoting theoretical understanding in the relevant fields of physics, mathematics, astronomy and astrophysics and to direct future technological, observational, and experimental efforts. The meetings discuss recent developments in classical and quantum aspects of gravity, and in cosmology and relativistic astrophysics, with major emphasis on mathematical foundations and physical predictions, having the main objective of gathering scientists from diverse backgrounds for deepening our understanding of spacetime structure and reviewing the current state of the art in the theory, observations and experiments pertinent to relativistic gravitation. The range of topics is broad, going from the more abstract classical theory, quantum gravity, branes and strings, to more concrete relativistic astrophysics observations and modeling.The three volumes of the proceedings of MG13 give a broad view of all aspects of gravitational physics and astrophysics, from mathematical issues to recent observations and experiments. The scientific program of the meeting included 33 morning plenary talks during 6 days, and 75 parallel sessions over 4 afternoons. Volume A contains plenary and review talks ranging from the mathematical foundations of classical and quantum gravitational theories including recent developments in string/brane theories, to precision tests of general relativity including progress towards the detection of gravitational waves, and from supernova cosmology to relativistic astrophysics including such topics as gamma ray bursts, black hole physics both in our galaxy and in active galactic nuclei in other galaxies, and neutron star and pulsar astrophysics. Volumes B and C include parallel sessions which touch on dark matter, neutrinos, X-ray sources, astrophysical black holes, neutron stars, binary systems, radiative transfer, accretion disks, quasors, gamma ray bursts, supernovas, alternative gravitational theories, perturbations of collapsed objects, analog models, black hole thermodynamics, numerical relativity, gravitational lensing, large scale structure, observational cosmology, early universe models and cosmic microwave background anisotropies, inhomogeneous cosmology, inflation, global structure, singularities, chaos, Einstein-Maxwell systems, wormholes, exact solutions of Einstein's equations, gravitational waves, gravitational wave detectors and data analysis, precision gravitational measurements, quantum gravity and loop quantum gravity, quantum cosmology, strings and branes, self-gravitating systems, gamma ray astronomy, and cosmic rays and the history of general relativity.

In this book, the interesting results of similar works carried out by both authors independently, is presented in a unique manner. This book is written as a token of exchange between the East and the West and it is hoped that it will lead to greater cooperation between the scientists.