General Relativity
General Relativity by Robert Waldby Robert Wald
Shares rank 4 of 13 physics textbooks by recommenders
Recommended as a mathematically modern, coordinate-light textbook on general relativity, often named among the classic GR texts.
Recommended as a mathematically modern, coordinate-light textbook on general relativity, often named among the classic GR texts.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Mathematically modern, not coordinate-heavy
“So much more painful to learn from than Wald or other mathematically modern treatments of GR”
Comment from 4 Nov 2025 in “What is a manifold?” “good to know Wald is mathematically modern and not encrusted with coordinates”
Comment from 4 Nov 2025 in “What is a manifold?” Named a classic GR textbook
“A good textbook treatment is that of Wald (1984).”
Comment from 25 Aug 2026 in “Black hole singularity is a surface not a point” “the two great classic GR textbooks”
Comment from 25 Aug 2026 in “Black hole singularity is a surface not a point”
Other physics textbooks people recommend
The four most recommended other physics textbooks, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Feynman Lectures on Physicsby Feynman, Leighton and Sands | 34 | 3 | 92% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Course of Theoretical Physicsby Landau and Lifshitz | 8 | 1 | 89% | 6 | — | — |
| Computational Physics (2nd Edition)by Giordano and Nakanishi | 7 | 1 | 88% | 1 | — | — |
| General Relativityby Robert WaldThis page | 6 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| Engineering Thermodynamics | 6 | 0 | 100% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
8 of the 10 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Wald (1984) discuss Kruskal coordinates and their associated spacetime diagram”
“A good textbook treatment is that of Wald (1984).”
“the two great classic GR textbooks”
“the experts were rather recommending Wald”
“does a very good job of explaining the abstract index notation”
“good to know Wald is mathematically modern and not encrusted with coordinates”
“That's good to know about Wald.”
“So much more painful to learn from than Wald or other mathematically modern treatments of GR”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.