ABSTRACT
Our tour of theoretical physics begins with geometry, and there are two reasons for this. One is that the framework of space and time provides, as it were, the stage upon which physical events are played out, and it will be helpful to gain a clear idea of what this stage looks like before introducing the cast. As a matter of fact, the geometry of space and time itself plays an active role in those physical processes that involve gravitation (and perhaps, according to some speculative theories, in other processes as well). Thus, our study of geometry will culminate, in Chapter 4, in the account of gravity oered by Einstein's general theory of relativity. The other reason for beginning with geometry is that the mathematical notions we develop will reappear in later contexts.
