This book introduces the reader to research work on a particular aspect of rotating fields in general relativity. It should be accessible to someone with an elementary knowledge of general relativity, such as that obtained in an undergraduate course on general relativity at a British university. A person with some maturity in mathematical physics may be able to follow it without knowing general relativity, as I have given a brief introduction to the relevant aspects of general relativity in Chapter 1.

My intention has been to write a short book which can provide a relatively quick entry into some research topics. I have therefore made only a brief mention of some topics such as the important group theoretic generation of solutions by Kinnersley and others. A significant part of this book deals with interior solutions, for which these techniques are not yet applicable. I have also not touched upon Petrov classification of solutions as this is marginal to the problems considered in this book. The connecting link of the topics considered here is the Weyl–Lewis–Papapetrou form of the stationary axially symmetric metric, which is derived in detail in Chapters 1 and 2.

A significant part of the book is based on my own work and for this reason the book may be considered as too specialized. However, all research is specialized and I believe it is instructive for the beginning research worker to be shown a piece of work carried out to a certain stage of completion.