What is your background in math and physics? I mean, do you understand college-level math? I'm asking this in order to know which books to recommend.
Are you interested in fully technical explanations or just intuitive expositions of the concepts? Keep in mind that the full technicalities are
much harder than the intuitive explanations.
Well, if you do have the appropriate background in math (i.e.college-level math, I can go in details if you want) there're two books that will explain in all mathematically excruciating details what general relativity is all about:
Gravitation and Cosmology : Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity, by Steven Weinberg;
and
Gravitation , by Kip Thorne et al.
Both are massive tomes, and will require a lot of effort and math knowledge to be digested. I've learned most of what I currently know about GR from reading these books. There're other great textbooks out there, but these two are widely recommended and very comprehensive.
If you don't feel up to this technical challenge right now, check out Schutz'
A First Course In General Relativity . It's much more understandable, so you could begin with; provided you have sufficient knowledge in math and physics (classical mechanics and vector calculus are a must).
Now, if you're interested in popular, intuitive explanations, I stronly urge you to read Lawrence M.Krauss'
The Physics of Star Trek . I read this book when I was 14, and it gave me my interest for physics.
Brian Greene's
The Elegant Universe and
The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality also provide excellent intuitive explanations of the concepts behind Quantum physics and General Relativity.
For another amazing book, written by an even more amazing physicist, check out Richard Feynman's
The Character of Physical Law. You won't be disappointed.
And if you've a good understanding of spoken english, and has some background in math and physics (they'll always haunt you
) check out
The Feynman Lectures on Physics: The Complete Audio Collection: Volume 13: Feynman on Fields . As the name implies it's an audio book.
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If you google for General Relativity, I'm sure you'll find lots of resources online for it. Pay special attention to pages hosted in known universities as they're usually clearer (and get away from the crackpots who offer wildly new technologies based on relativity and quantum physics; they're all quacks).
You could begin checking out Wikipedia's article on
General Relativity . It's well written, and has a section for online resources.
I hope this helps you
