Books
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Calder, Nigel. Einstein's Universe. New York: The Viking Press, 1979.
Quite a readable survey of Einstein's achievements and vision. Presents key concepts on spacetime curvature, the flow of time, the General Theory, and its consequences for cosmology.
- Einstein, Albert. Relativity. The Special and General Theory. A Popular Exposition. NewYork: Crown Publishers, 1961.
An original work by the father of relativity himself. Mostly accessible (with some mental effort!) but ther e are a few spots where the math gets a bit intense.
- Hawking, Stephen W.H. A Brief History of Time from the Big Bang to Black Holes. Toronto: Bantam Books, 1988.
Highly acclaimed popular account of the latest knowledge on Singularities, Black Holes and their implications for cosmology. Can be a bit heavy-going in places, though. There's also an accompanying CD-ROM produced by Crunch Media Corp. and published by Scientific American (1994).
- Schwartz, Joe and Michael McGuinnes. Einstein for Beginners. London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, 1979.
Very accessible cartoon exposition of Einstein's life and times and how he challenged conventional wisdom to come up with the Special Theory.
- Sugimoto, Kenji. Albert Einstein. A Photographic Biography. New York: Schocken Books, 1989.
- Thorne, Kip. Black Holes, Time Warps and Einstein's Outrageous Legacy. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1994.
Comprehensive survey of the field of relativity: its applications to physics and cosmology; its history; and a lot of background on the roles of the key players.
- The Ultimate Einstein. CD-ROM to be released very soon by Byron Preiss Multimedia, Inc., New York.
A interactive survey of Einstein's life and times, along with an intelligible exposition of his main theories and their place in modern physics and cosmology.
- von Baeyer, Hans C. "A Ripple in Gravity's Lens." Chap. 5 in The Fermi Solution. New York: Random House, 1993.
Excellent and highly accessible distillation of "gravitational lensing" predicted by the General Theory of Relativity.
- von Baeyer, Hans C. "Gravity." Chapter in Rainbows, Snowflakes, and Quarks. Physics and the World Around Us. New York: The MacGraw-Hill Book Co., 1984.
Very readable account of why, from the standpoint of General Relativity, gravity isn't a "force acting at a distance," but is instead bound up with the curvature of spacetime.
- Will, Clifford M. Was Einstein Right? Putting General Relativity to the Test. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1986.
Good backgrounder on the numerous tests that General Relativity has been put through.
Articles
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BLACK HOLES
"A New Path is Discovered for Study of Black Holes." New York Times, June 27, 1995.
"Astrophysical Crash: Computing Black Holes." access (NCSA's computational science newsletter), Spring 1994, p.12.
"Binary Neutron Stars." Scientific American, May 1995, p. 54-61.
"A Close Look at an Active Galaxy's Engine." Science, Vol. 267, March 24, 1995, p. 1768.
"Does the Milky Way Hide Its Black Hole?" Science News, Vol.147, April 15, 1995, p. ??
"New Evidence of Galactic Black Hole." Science News, Vol. 147, p. 36
"Radio Galaxies: Born in Cosmic Crackups?" Science, Vol. 268, June 23, 1995, p. 1703.
"Space Telescope Confirms Theory of Black Holes." New York Times, May 26, 1994.
"Theorists Make a Bid to Eliminate Black Holes." Science, Vol. 266, December 23, p.1945
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GRAVITATIONAL WAVES
"Catching the Wave." Scientific American, March 1992, p. 90-99.
"The Last Three Minutes." Science News, Vol 143, June 26, 1993, p. 408-409.
"LIGO: A $250 Million Gamble." Science, Vol. 260, April 30, 1993, p. 612-614.
"Two Sites for Catching Gravitational Waves." Science News, Vol.141, February 29, 1992, p. 134.
"Waves of the Future." Forefronts (Cornell Theory Center newsletter), Vol.10, No. 1, Winter 1995, p.13. (First appeared in HPC Wire, February 3, 1995.)
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NEUTRON STARS
"Binary Neutron Stars." Scientific American, May, 1995, p. 53-61
