Based on lectures given at a summer school on computer algebra, the book provides a didactic description of the facilities available in three computor algebra systems - MAPLE, REDUCE and SHEEP - for performing calculations in the algebra-intensive field of general relativity. With MAPLE and REDUCE, two widespread great-purpose systems, the reader is shown how to use currently available packages to perform calculations with respect to tetrads, co-ordinate systems, and Poincare` gauge theory. The section on SHEEP and Stensor, being the first published book on these systems, explains how to use these systems to tackle a wide range of calculations with respect to tackle a wide range of calculations in general relativity, including the manipulation of indicial formulae. For the researcher in general relativity, the book therefore promises a wide overview of the facilities available in computer algebra to lessen the burden of the lengthy, error-prone calculations involved in their research.

This 1985 book consists of essays reviewing progress or reporting original results in areas of the applications of gravity theory to which Professor Bonnor had contributed. In particular, the influence of his work in two important fields of interest to astonomers, physicists and mathematicians, galaxy formation and the study of axisymmetric solutions in general relativity, is well recognised. The essays on galaxies and astrophysical cosmology are related to Professor Bonnor's work on the treatment of perturbations of uniform cosmological models, while the essays on axisymmetric solutions reflect the concerns of his long series of papers on the subject, which began with generating techniques and went on to deal with interpretation of the solutions obtained. In addition there is a number of essays on other topics in gravity theory, including numerical work, mathematical cosmology and gravitational waves.