PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Cole Miller received his PhD in physics in 1990 from the California Institute of Technology. After postdoctoral appointments at the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago, he has been a professor of astronomy at the University of Maryland since 1999. His research has focused on the astrophysics of black holes, neutron stars, and gravitational waves. Nicolás Yunes received his PhD in physics in 2008 from the Pennsylvania State University. After postdoctoral appointments at Princeton University and MIT, he was a professor of physics at Montana State University from 2011-2018, and in 2019 moved to the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, where he is a professor and founding director of the Illinois Center for Advanced Studies of the Universe. His research has focused on the fundamental physics of black holes, neutron stars, and gravitational waves.
A relativist of my acquaintance once complained that a text by a different relativist began by telling the reader what a diffeomorphism is not. Let me therefore begin by telling you that this is not a General Relativity textbook. It is also not an astrophysics text book. Rather it is intended as a tool to get a reader (student at the level of BSc + 1 year, or other similarly prepared individual) ready to start research on gravitational waves as efficiently as possible, assuming prior knowledge of classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, and classical electrodynamics. The authors also explain that they wish to encourage readers to develop the habit of doing a “Fermi-style” estimate of whatever they are looking for prior to carrying out a more detailed, rigorous calculation, if the approximate results seem to justify one. Estimating the yield of the Trinity atomic-bomb test by letting pieces of paper fly in the blast wave is given as an example, and the John Wheeler equivalent was the dictum not to do a calculation until you knew the answer. The exercises provided at the ends of each of the eight chapters and two of the three appendices are intended to promote that sort of analysis and so help to develop “physical intuition” in the serious reader. Virginia Trimble, The Observatory, October 2022 * The Observatory *
