The Guide to Background Investigations

Book Description

The Guide was created to provide employers and others involved in background investigations with a tool to help access information contained in public records. First published in 1987 with the title National Employment Screening Directory, the content has been expanded with each new edition. In addition, the information is updated extensively every two years. The book's format has been updated for the 9th Edition to make the directories easier and more convenient to use. Following an introduction offering tips on the value and use of public records for investigative purposes, The Guide contains five major sections: State Records Directory, Canadian Records Directory, Locator Directory, Federal Records Directory, and Educational Records Directory. The State Records Directory is arranged alphabetically by state. For each state, a brief introduction provides an overview of access to the state's records and includes the state's hot-line number for additional assistance. The State Record Directory includes contacts for obtaining corporation commission information, criminal records, driving and vehicle records, license verification through state boards, vital statistics (birth, death, marriage and divorce), UCC records (asset liens) and workers' compensation records. Listings detail procedures, fees and additional notes on accessing state records. Within the State Record Directory, courthouses are listed state-by-state for access to criminal, misdemeanor and civil records that are stored at the county level. Each state section ends with a city-county cross-reference, an atlas quality state map and a map index. When only an individual's address is known, the cross-reference, map and index can be used to determine the county of residence as well as surrounding counties. The Locator Directory provides a zip code, state and county cross-reference which can be used to verify the county where an addresses is located in areas where a city's boundaries may overlap more than one county. The Canadian Records Directory includes sources for Canadian Driving Records, Canadian Criminal Records and a listing of over 200 Canadian Schools. The Federal Records Directory begins with a brief description of the federal court system and how it can be used to access civil, criminal and bankruptcy cases. Listed by state, entries include the address, telephone number, and procedures for each district and bankruptcy court. Also included in the Federal Records Section are Federal Appellate Courts and sources for Military Records. The Educational Records Directory lists over 4,000 colleges, universities, and trade and technical schools. Listed alphabetically, each entry supplies the address and telephone number for the registrar's office, along with the policy and procedures for accessing information. Schools are also cross-referenced by state and city. The Guide to Background Investigations is indispensable as the most accurate and comprehensive nationwide directory to public record sources. The broad scope of the book combined with the depth and detail of its listings make it an excellent choice for researchers and investigators looking for a valuable yet affordable resource for background information.

Customer Reviews:

seeking a break.......2000-10-07

what i am really interested in is if any prior readers would like to sell their copy? email jtm4213@aol.com

A must have for every investigator!.......1999-12-13

I have used this guide for my investigations for eight years, from the fourth edition. It only gets bigger and better!

Check Him Out! The American Woman's Guide to Background Investigations

Average customer rating:

More info wanted
Inside Info!
Very informative

Check Him Out! The American Woman's Guide to Background Investigations
Joseph Ryan
Manufacturer: Washington Research Associates
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Spiral-bound

General | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0937801194

Book Description

Written by a private investigator, this guide provides easy-to-understand instructions on how a woman can use the Internet and telephone to perform a confidential background check on her "significant other," whether it's a boyfriend, fiancé, or husband.

Customer Reviews:

More info wanted.......2002-12-02

It's well written in straight foreward style with good examples of WHY you should check someone out and how to start.
It has good summaries of where to go in the internet but needs more details.

Inside Info!.......2002-01-04

I've read all the "background
checks" books, this is the
only one that was really
helpful. It's up to date
(unlike most of the others)
and very Internet-oriented.
It's the best by far.

Very informative.......1999-09-23

Gives a good overview of how to use the Internet to run background checks from your home computer, and via phone calls. Easy to read and follow.

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Guide to Background Investigations
Source Pubn
Manufacturer: SBC Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Directories | Catalogs & Directories | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0941233529

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The Guide to Background Investigations

Manufacturer: TISI-Nat'l Employment Screening Service
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0941233243

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A Necessary Tool for Investigators

Guide to Background Investigations
TISI Publishers
Manufacturer: T. I. S. I.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Law | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0964238810

Customer Reviews:

A Necessary Tool for Investigators.......1999-11-24

The Guide to Background Investigations is a great tool to have on your agency shelf. Besides the listings for all the addresses and phones for the county governments across the USA, another great feature is the maps; if you are wondering what counties border a targeted county, the maps are very useful. Also, the lists of which cities are in which counties is a great help. You'll find yourself consulting this Guide again and again. Get it!

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The Guide to Background Investigations
Don Johnson
Manufacturer: Business Resources Bureau
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Research | Education | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1879792842

Professional's Guide To Background Investigations (Private Investigation)

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Professional's Guide To Background Investigations (Private Investigation)
Ralph D. Thomas , Ralph Thomas , and Pat Pound
Manufacturer: Thomas Investigative Publications, Incorporat
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Spiral-bound

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1891247301

Check It Out: Guide to Background Investigations

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Check It Out: Guide to Background Investigations
Edmund I. Pankav
Manufacturer: Thomas Investigative Pubns Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0918487412

Employee background investigations: A guide for employers

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Employee background investigations: A guide for employers
Jon D Groussman
Manufacturer: Liability Consultants
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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Guide to Background Investigations

Manufacturer: Source Pubns
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 9993931489

Customer Reviews:

A Breakthrough in Undergraduate Texts.......2007-03-15

A book I really wouldn't have thought could have been written. There are a lot of books on general relativity at the superficial level, call these books 'mathless.' There are monumental tomes aimed at the graduate student level, call these books 'tensor calculus.' Here is a book exquisitely positioned between these others. The student will need to have had differential calculus, and perhaps a bit of basic physics, and with these he will get a pretty good, introductory understanding of General Relativity.

The real key to this book is that it explains a lot, but then it open up a bunch of other questions, questions that we really haven't answered yet -- things like dark matter, dark energy, accelerating expansion of the universe, and more.

The book ends with: 'How can physics live up to its true greatness except by a new revolution in outlook which dwarfs all past revolutions? And when it comes, will we not say to each other, Oh, how beautiful and simple it all is! How could we ever have missed it so long.'

That's just the awe, the vision, that we want new and budding physicists to have.

Good book if you like mathematics!.......2007-01-05

This is the best book about General relativity ( GR ) that I have ever read. Instead of trying to explain GR with words the author is using mathematics to to illustrate some of the consequences of GR. This means that some mathematical knowledge is required ( but not knowledge about tensors and dfferential forms ) and that the reader need to spend some time with paper and pencil to truly understand the text. The examples is concentrated on what is happening around black holes but the advance of Mercury's perihelion and the slowing of light around the Sun is also described. A very good book!

Amazing Introduction to a Very Esoteric Subject.......2006-06-11

Einstein's general theory of relativity is perhaps one of the most mathematically intense areas of research any physicist or astronomer could undertake. However this book takes the subject and turns it into a joyous romp through curved spacetime.

By avoiding the field equations and focusing on their solutions the authors impart to the eager student an overview of general relativity and set the stage for a more rigorous approach to be undertaken later. This book is the perfect introduction to the subject.

The book is well suited for advanced undergraduates who have had several hours of physics and mathematics. It is likewise suited to serve as a introductory text for graduate students that are studying astrophysics and astronomy. In the latter case the text serves well as an overview of what general relativity is, many of its findings, its predictions, and its relevance to observational astronomy.

If you have a basic understanding of calculus and have studied the special theory of relativity in some detail then this book is well suited to your needs.

Excellent delivery!.......2005-09-25

This book was delivered in immaculate condition and is exactly how I was hoping it would be. Thank you for your product and i hope to do business with you again!

Sincerely,

Travis

Gives an intuitive understanding of General Relativity.......2005-08-18

This book sidesteps the hard work needed to motivate and develop the Einstein field equations, and goes directly to one of the most important solutions of the equations, the Schwarzschild solution, which gives rise to the concept of a black hole. By exploring what observers in different parts of space-time would experience along their different trajectories (whether falling into a black hole or watching from a safe spot far away), Taylor and Wheeler manage to convey an intuitive understanding for such typical GR "paradoxes" such as the fact that the same "event" (the crossing over of an object through the event horizon) can be seen to take 15 minutes, or forever, depending on who's watching it.

Because of what it omits, this book is not a complete presentation of GR. It does present the most fun part of GR, however, in a way that is mathematically accessible.

Along the way, a few side questions are adddressed, like "How painful would it be to be squished/torn apart as I fall into a black hole?" A lot of time is also spent explaining how the weird trajectories of light within the event horizon will transmogrify what is seen by the observer.

This is a great book and a lot of fun. I am also left with a greater motivation to go back to a more complete presentation, to be convinced that "this is where you have to end up". Although much longer, this book is a worthy successor to the original output of this dynamic duo, "Spacetime Physics".

An Introduction To Black Holes, Information And The String Theory Revolution: The Holographic Universe

Average customer rating:

Wonderful exposé!
Not for people with just a curiosity for string theory!
Exploring the Holographic Multiverse
Easy to understand - very simple, no-nonsense style.
Define "Introduction"

An Introduction To Black Holes, Information And The String Theory Revolution: The Holographic Universe
Leonard Susskind , and James Lindesay
Manufacturer: World Scientific Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 9812561315

Book Description

Over the last decade the physics of black holes has been revolutionized by developments that grew out of Jacob Bekenstein's realization that black holes have entropy. Steven Hawking raised profound issues concerning the loss of information in black hole evaporation and the consistency of quantum mechanics in a world with gravity. For two decades these questions puzzled theoretical physicists and eventually led to a revolution in the way we think about space, time, matter and information. This revolution has culminated in a remarkable principle called "The Holographic Principle", which is now a major focus of attention in gravitational research, quantum field theory and elementary particle physics. Leonard Susskind, one of the co-inventors of the Holographic Principle as well as one of the founders of String theory, develops and explains these concepts.

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful exposé!.......2007-03-05

Indeed, I agree with the previous reviewer: this book is certainly not for laymen, however it is a wonderful exposé of the "holographic universe", i.e. information contained not in volumina of objects but in their surfaces, such as black holes, which are maximum-entropy objects. In order to understand the book, you'll need a BSc in physics or mathematics with a keen interest in physics. Knowledge of Einstein's theory of general relativity might be of use, but not strictly neccesary. It's written nicely, it is up to date, and a pleasure to study.

Not for people with just a curiosity for string theory!.......2006-04-07

You will probably need a BA or BS degree in physics for this book to be understandable to you. If you are just curious about string theory then you will be LOST in this book. I have never seen so many physic/math proofs and formulas in my life! It only made me realize how much other people are smarter than myself. Buy Steven Hawking's A Briefer History in Time for a lay person's guide to string theory and other interesting theories if you don't want to spend a gigantic amount of brain power.

Exploring the Holographic Multiverse.......2005-09-01

"Black Holes, Information and the String Theory Revolution: The Holographic Universe"

Lenny and I worked together with Johnny Glogower on quantum phase and time operators at Cornell in 1964 .Lenny's densely mathematical book is not a popular book. It is incomprehensible to the general reader and it is not easy going for the professional theoretical physicist not in the sub-field. However, it has moments of great clarity and if it is wrong, as George Chapline thinks, it is brilliantly wrong. Certainly pieces of Lenny's thesis will survive. So, to really see what the book is about, it's best to read the end of the book first and then go back to the beginning. Lenny emphasizes the key role on nonlocality (e.g. nonlocality of gravity energy?) in black hole complementarity.

"In order to reconcile the equivalence principle with the rules of quantum mechanics the rules of locality must be massively modified."

I like the idea of the blackhole as a string since I already published in 1974 the explanation of the Regge slope alpha' (for strings)

J ~ alpha'E^2

alpha' ~ (1Gev)^-2

as rotating Kerr black hole Wheeler "micro with effective strong gravity G* ~ 10^40G in Herbert Frohlich's "Collective Phenomena". Indeed, that's why Abdus Salam invited me to ICTP Trieste, Italy 1973-74 (e.g. contact Jagdish Mehra).

What will survive is the IR/UV duality. What about LIF/LNIF complementarity? Intriguing. What is completely missing in Lenny's theory is Vacuum ODLRO. For example, Lenny never considers a Bose-Einstein condensate in the vacuum in which there is a macroscopic eigenvalue of the first reduced density matrix. All eigenvalues must be less than 1 in Lenny's theory. Second, Lenny used a positive energy density to derive some of his key results when in fact negative zero point energy density would describe dark matter. Third, Lenny's ADS model has the wrong sign of the actually observed small post-inflation cosmological constant. How fatal this is I do not know yet. Perhaps he analytically continues to the DS model? That is ADS is "dark matter" with negative zero point energy density and positive pressure. DS is "dark energy" with positive zero point energy density and negative pressure. Furthermore, Lenny's equation for p the power of t in the FRW scale factor a(t) ~ t^p breaks down in the most important case, i.e. p -> infinity when w -> -1, which is the case for zero point energy. One nice idea is that the D3 brane of M-theory is the kind of 3+1 space-time we live in with the 6 extra space-time dimensions as "scalar fields". This fits well with Gennady Shipov's torsion field theory extension of 1915 GR. Indeed, if we interpret these scalar fields as vacuum ODLRO Higgs-Goldstone fields associated with the local gauging of the Lorentz group O(1,3) then the vacuum order parameter space is SU(2)xSU(2) consistent with the Hedgehog anomaly centered at Sun seen in the TWO NASA Pioneer Space Probes where a_g = - cH(t). All stars may have this property, i.e. part of stellar formation? Maybe even galaxies have it? That is vacuum ODLRO topological defects as seeds for early galaxy formation explaining galactic halos as well?

He opens up with the math of black holes in different coordinate representations. But you need to remember (or look up) your high school logarithms and the trigonometry formula for the tangent of the half-angle to show from eqs (1.1.2) to (1.1.4) that a signal from the black hole surface horizon never reaches the distant observers. The Penrose diagram makes that instantly obvious of course.

Comment 1

Lenny: "The paradox was discovered by Jacob Bekenstein and turned into a serious crisis by Stephen Hawking. ... Bekenstein realized that if the second law of thermodynamics was not to be violated in the presence of a black hole, the black hole must possess an intrinsic entropy. ... How and why a classical solution of field equations should be endowed with thermodynamical attributes has remained obscure."

Jack: The black hole is a property of Einstein's vacuum equation

Ruv = 0

However, this equation is a c-number emergent field theory from vacuum ODLRO. George Chapline, Jr and I have both arrived at this general idea quite independently. Let the vacuum ODLRO order parameter be

psi = |psi|e^iargpsi

suppress internal symmetry indices, but think of SU(2)hypercharge that has a neutral VEV in the standard model (evidence from NASA Pioneer anomaly a_g = -cH(t) as a hedgehog topological defect centered at Sun).

Let the Einstein-Cartan 1-form be

e = 1 + B

My ansatz is

B = (hG/c^3)^1/2d(argtheta)

with "string" branch cuts in argtheta

Therefore, there is no gravity and inertia when h -> 0 and c -> infinity even when G =/= 0. There is still some residual "normal fluid" fluctuations around the stiff vacuum order parameter psi that obeys the rules of micro-quantum theory as given by Lenny. The ratio of normal to superfluid obviously has a temperature parameter T. Therefore, Lenny's question is answered.

Comment 2

Lenny: "Eventually the black hole must completely evaporate. Hawking then raised the question of what becomes of the quantum correlations between matter outside the black hole and matter that disappears behind the horizon. ... Hawking then made arguments that there is no way, consistent with causality, for the correlations to be carried by the outgoing evaporation products."

Jack: So much the worse for causality, which here means no space-like influences outside the local light cones. Bell's theorem shows that such space-like influences are needed and they are locally random in micro-quantum theory consistent with the blackbody radiation.

Lenny: "Thus, according to Hawking, the existence of black holes inevitably causes a loss of quantum coherence and breakdown of one of the basic principles of quantum mechanics - the evolution of pure states into pure states."

Jack: So much the worse for micro-quantum mechanics. It's time to slaughter that Sacred Cow. Global special relativity of 1905 is violated by the necessity of gravity and inertia in local general relativity of 1915 where it is relegated to a purely local tangent space by the equivalence principle. In the same way micro-quantum mechanics is not complete, but merely corresponds to nonlocally entangled small fluctuations about the stiff macro-quantum vacuum ODLRO coherent order parameter that provides the local fabric of space-time via

B = (hG/c^3)^1/2d(argVacuum ODLRO).

Lenny: "Hawking further argued that once the loss of quantum coherence is permitted in black hole evaporation, it becomes compulsory in all processes involving the Planck scale. The world would behave as if it were in a noisy environment which continuously leads to a loss of coherence. The trouble with this is that there is no known way to destroy coherence without at the same time violating energy conservation by heating the world."

Jack: I need to see the math of the above argument. Why does not the expansion of the universe cool down this alleged heating effect? Also total energy is not necessarily conserved in curved space-time because of the breakdown of time translation symmetry. Presumably the book will explain this argument in more detail. Lenny wants to hold on to micro-quantum unitarity at all costs and I think this is the basic error in his thesis, but I could be wrong. The macro-quantum vacuum ODLRO order parameter does not obey a unitary time evolution. You cannot think of |psi|^2 as a Born quantum probability density like you can for micro-quantum wave functions.

Indeed the space integral of |psi(x)|^2 need not be a constant of the motion at all. For example, you have a pot of superfluid helium at almost T = 0 at t = 0 and then you slowly heat it. As you heat the superfluid it turns to normal fluid completely disappearing at the lambda point. In the case of vacuum ODLRO the "normal fluid" is the dark energy!

Comment 3
Lenny's Chapter 1 implicitly clearly shows why Hal Puthoff's PV alternative to the black hole is not a useful theory for metric engineering the fabric of space-time to reach the stars and other galaxies in a short time through wormholes held open by dark energy. Hal uses isotropic coordinates inside the event horizon where they are not appropriate. He says he can do that because his exponential metric does not have an event horizon. But in that case his solution does not obey Einstein's vacuum GR equation Ruv = 0. Therefore, PV theory conflicts with GR. Indeed, PV theory is not consistent with Diff(4) tensors and therefore, it violates the equivalence principle. In spite of that Hal Puthoff claims he is not offering a theory different from GR but only an "engineer's" way to do it. This, of course, is self-contradictory. Note that in George Chapline's "dark star" theory there is dark energy behind the event horizon, i.e. not Ruv = 0, but the same equation I use

Guv + /\zpfguv = 0

We do seem to need Gennady Shipov's torsion field beyond 1915 GR to allow

/\zpf^,v =/= 0 at the event horizon boundary because the Bianchi identities without torsion demand /\zpf^,v = 0.

Jack Sarfatti

Easy to understand - very simple, no-nonsense style........2005-07-06

The title of the book reminds me of the classic physics question: yes, this equation can be expanded for small values of the parameter. But before you whip out that expansion, first tell me what "small" means in this context?

I would venture to say that the title of the book is a misnomer on some level. This is a technical book, there's no question about that. If you are not a physicist, you will not understand a single page. When I say "technical", what I specifically mean is you should have:

* A course on general relativity. The first page dumps the Schwarzschild metric on you. You should be familiar with, say, the Faraday tensor (which any decent GR or even SR course should cover).

* A course on quantum field theory. The book very quickly goes into the massless free Klein-Gordon equation in a Schwarzschild background. You should know the basics of string theory. After all, that's what the book is partially about!

* A course on thermo/statistical mechanics. The book delves into black hole entropy. Be prepared to blow the dust off your partition functions.

In that sense, this book is not an introduction, and is CERTAINLY not for the layperson. Now that I've disparaged this book enough, I'll tell you why this is a phenomenal book that deserves a place on your bookshelf (again, for certain values of "you").

This book is a gentle introduction to the classical and quantum mechanical principles of blackholes. It was beautifully written. It may very well be one of my favorite books. When I say "beautiful", I don't mean beautiful like Wald's classic but impenetrable book on GR. Imagine David Griffiths or Matt Visser writing a book for mid-level grad students going into high energy physics. They go deeply into the different coordinates used for blackhole spacetimes and Penrose diagrams, but in a hand-holding way that emphasizes knowing-by-visualization rather than knowing-by-calculation. Yes, the calculations are all there, but the authors are not content with that. They go into the nitty-gritty type of understanding that seems to be absent in most books on this subject.

Which brings me to the next point: diagrams. This book may contain more diagrams than any other comprable book I've seen (except for the behemoth called "Gravitation", but with the case of the telephone book, half the diagrams are wasteful; do we REALLY need to see a picture of firecracker's world line or yet another picture of Newton?). The diagrams are numerous and effective. Kudos. I wish more authors paid as much attention to visualization.

The authors took a very difficult subject and wrote an extremely accessible and well written book on it. If you are a student of high energy physics, or simply want to see someone masterfully write on the subject, this book deserves a place on your bookshelf. Again, for certain values of "you".

I'm still in the process of reading this book, but one fault I can find is that I wish the index was a bit more extensive. However, that's small-fry compared to what makes this book great.

Define "Introduction".......2005-05-06

If you're into reading about physics but don't have the maths to back it up, this isn't the book for you. This "introduction" is probably aimed at university physics students. I am without a university physics education and am finding the book almost as hard as reading a Japanese newspaper. As with reading a Japanese newspaper, the pictures help a lot. I don't feel I'm getting enough to "rate" the book, but I can warn others as innumerate as myself.

Update: I've made it ~halfway through. There's a great deal of uncertainty as to what I'm actually understanding as opposed to what I'm just filling-in with intuitive fictions. But I can live with that (as we all must at some point).

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No Heavy Math, Partial DE's don't come in until Page 5

Black Holes: An Introduction
Derek Raine , and Edwin Thomas
Manufacturer: Imperial College Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1860945864

Product Description

This introduction to the fascinating subject of black holes fills a significant gap in the literature which exists between popular, non-mathematical expositions and advanced textbooks at the research level. It is designed for advanced undergraduates and first year postgraduates as a useful stepping-stone to the advanced literature. The book provides an accessible introduction to the exact solutions of Einsteins vacuum field equations describing spherical and axisymmetric (rotating) black holes. The geometry and physical properties of these spacetimes are explored through the motion of particles and light. The use of different coordinate systems, maximal extensions and Penrose diagrams is explained. The association of the surface area of a black hole with its entropy is discussed and it is shown that with the introduction of quantum mechanics black holes cease to be black and can radiate. This result allows black holes to satisfy the laws of thermodynamics and thus be consistent with the rest of physics.

Customer Reviews:

No Heavy Math, Partial DE's don't come in until Page 5.......2006-04-01

This rather small (only 168 pages is pretty small for a college text) book is aimed at the advanced undergraduate or early graduate student in astronomy or astrophysics. It is a non-heavy-math introduction to black holes, but at times it says that things would be easier to explain if you had another half dozen math classes.

This is not your basic introduction for the layman. The first chapter is on Relativistic Gravity. And while the mathematics may not be as complex as it can get, the partial differential equaions start on page 5. And there aren't many pages from then on that don't have at least one equasion.

The surprising thing about the book is the caliber of the writing. These guys write like people speak. Reading the book is interesting. (I skipped the math, it's been too many years since I got a degree in physics.) And you get an understanding of where the current understanding of black holes is. You also get a feeling of where research is headed and some hints of what might be found.

Gravity, Black Holes, and the Very Early Universe: An Introduction to General Relativity and Cosmology

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Gravity, Black Holes, and the Very Early Universe: An Introduction to General Relativity and Cosmology
Tai L. Chow
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

Chow introduces the mathematical methods essential to understanding and applying general relativity--tensor calculus, some differential geometry, etc.--but leaves to more advanced references derivations that a beginning student would likely find overly long and tedious. The book employs standard tensor analysis--which requires only basic calculus for its understanding--and resists the temptation to adopt more powerful mathematical formalisms (like exterior calculus and differential forms) used by researchers in the field. In this way, the student can concentrate on learning physics--and not be distracted by the complexities of unfamiliar mathematical methods.

The book also offers comprehensive discussion of the physics of black holes. The author hits just the right level of presentation: sufficient mathematical detail to demonstrate or make plausible the physical attributes of black holes - in contrast to "hand-waving" discussions found in popularizations of the subject - yet not so much mathematics as to lose track of the physics in an impenetrable forest of equations. An equally strong point is the author's discussion of the most exciting contemporary issues in astrophysics apart from black holes: recent measurements of the cosmic microwave background, the existence of the cosmological constant, dark matter, dark energy and the accelerated expansion of the universe. The final chapters on unification and inflation are also very well done and not generally found in other introductory treatments of general relativity.

In sum, the book is highly informative and has a user-friendly style, which should make it an attractive choice for teachers and students.

White Dwarfs-Black Holes an Introduction to Relativistic Astrophysics

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White Dwarfs-Black Holes an Introduction to Relativistic Astrophysics
Roman & Hannelore Sexl
Manufacturer: Academic Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000RL124K

Black Holes, Gravitational Waves and Cosmology : Introduction to Current Research

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Black Holes, Gravitational Waves and Cosmology : Introduction to Current Research
John A.; Ruffini, Remo; Rees, Martin J. Wheeler
Manufacturer: Gordon & Breach Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HMW1LW

A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes

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A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes
Stephen W. Hawking; Introduction Carl Sagan; Illustrations Ron Miller
Manufacturer: BANTAM BOOKS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OLL82O

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Introduction to Black Holes
William Kaufman
Manufacturer: Astronomical Society of the Pacific
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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