A new textbook from Cambridge University Press entitled Numerical Relativity: Starting from Scratch, coauthored by Bowdoin College Physics Professor Thomas W. Baumgarte and Illinois Physics and Astronomy Professor Stuart L. Shapiro, explicates this esoteric subfield of physics for today’s students and scientists. The textbook makes heavy use of analogies from Newtonian gravity, scalar fields, and electromagnetic fields. In this way, it introduces key concepts of numerical relativity in a context familiar to readers without prior expertise in general relativity. Readers can explore the concepts presented by working through textbook exercises, and can see them first-hand by experimenting with the accompanying Python sample codes.
Written by Siv Schwink for Illinois Physics
Recent groundbreaking discoveries like the detection of gravitational waves would not have been possible without concepts and models that have been developed and generated through numerical relativity. Einstein’s theory of general relativity successfully describes the effect of gravitation on celestial bodies as a result of the warping of spacetime. Scientists working in the subfield of numerical relativity formulate general relativity in mathematical terms, so that the equations can be solved on supercomputers, and then construct complex algorithms and computational tools to analyze and solve problems on these machines.
Numerical relativity enables scientists to simulate dynamical scenarios that elucidate the properties and behavior of cosmic phenomena like colliding black holes and neutron stars, gravitational waves and stellar collapse.
Now a new textbook from Cambridge University Press entitled Numerical Relativity: Starting from Scratch, coauthored by Bowdoin College Physics Professor Thomas W. Baumgarte and Illinois Physics and Astronomy Professor Stuart L. Shapiro, explicates this esoteric subfield of physics for today’s students and scientists. The textbook makes heavy use of analogies from Newtonian gravity, scalar fields, and electromagnetic fields. In this way, it introduces key concepts of numerical relativity in a context familiar to readers without prior expertise in general relativity. Readers can explore the concepts presented by working through textbook exercises, and can see them first-hand by experimenting with the accompanying Python sample codes.
Shapiro comments, “Numerical relativity is a key tool that enables us to understand collisions of black holes and neutron stars and the generation of gravitational waves, the collapse of stars and star clusters to black holes, and countless other phenomena involving strong gravitational fields and high velocities approaching the speed of light. We hope our latest textbook might better enable new students and nonexpert researchers alike to use the tools of numerical relativity for the first time.”
The monograph has received excellent reviews from scientists at leading institutions. Robert Eisenstein of the Massachusettes Institute of Technology notes, “Numerical relativity well deserves its reputation as a subject of great beauty yet prodigious conceptual difficulty and daunting technical complexity. This outstanding text, by two leading practitioners of the field, is a wonderful Rosetta Stone for those seeking an efficient path toward a working knowledge of the subject. For me it will serve as an essential reference. I’m sorry only that it was not available sooner.” Simliar endorsements, from leaders such as Eric Poisson of the University of Guelph and Martin Rees and Ulrich Sperhake of the University of Cambridge, appear on the back cover.
About the Authors
Thomas W. Baumgarte is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Physics at Bowdoin and a former postdoc in Shapiro's group. His work in numerical relativity and relativistic astrophysics has been recognized with prizes and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Humboldt Foundation, the American Physical Society, and the Simons Foundation. He and Shapiro previously co-authored the textbook Numerical Relativity: Solving Einstein’s Equations on the Computer (Cambridge, 2010).
Stuart L. Shapiro is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is a leading scientist in theoretical astrophysics and general relativity and has been awarded numerous prizes and honors for his research and teaching, including a Sloan Research Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, several IBM Supercomputing awards, and the Hans A. Bethe Prize of the American Physical Society, where he was elected Fellow. Shapiro has published over 400 research papers and previously co-authored two widely adopted textbooks: Black Holes, White Dwarfs and Neutron Stars: The Physics of Compact Objects (Wiley, 1983) as well as Numerical Relativity: Solving Einstein’s Equations on the Computer (Cambridge, 2010) with Baumgarte.
Madeline Stover is a physics doctoral student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studying atmospheric dynamics applied to forest conservation. She interns as a science writer for Illinois Physics, where she also co-hosts the podcast Emergence along with fellow physics graduate student Mari Cieszynski. When Stover is not doing research or communications, she enjoys hosting her local radio show, singing with her band, and cooking with friends.
Daniel Inafuku graduated from Illinois Physics with a PhD and now works as a science writer. At Illinois, he conducted scientific research in mathematical biology and mathematical physics. In addition to his research interests, Daniel is a science video media creator.
Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Ph. D. is a science writer and an educator. She teaches college and high school physics and mathematics courses, and her writing has been published in popular science outlets such as WIRED, Scientific American, Physics World, and New Scientist. She earned a Ph. D. in Physics from UIUC in 2019 and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Jamie Hendrickson is a writer and content creator in higher education communications. They earned their M.A. in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2021. In addition to their communications work, they are a published area studies scholar and Russian-to-English translator.
Garrett R. Williams is an Illinois Physics Ph.D. Candidate and science writer. He has been recognized as the winner of the 2020 APS History of Physics Essay Competition and as a finalist in the 2021 AAAS Science and Human Rights Essay Competition. He was also an invited author in the 2021 #BlackinPhysics Week series published by Physics Today and Physics World.
Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Ph. D. is a science writer and an educator. She teaches college and high school physics and mathematics courses, and her writing has been published in popular science outlets such as WIRED, Scientific American, Physics World, and New Scientist. She earned a Ph. D. in Physics from UIUC in 2019 and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.