The orbits of test particles and light rays in the Schwarzschild geometry that were worked out in Chapter 9 are not only important for the delicate tests of general relativity in the solar system discussed in Chapter 10. They are also central to a number of astrophysical applications. This chapter introduces three of these applications – gravitational lensing, relativistic frequency shifts from accretion disks, and weighing stars in binary pulsars, which act both as a laboratory for general relativity and and a tool for astronomy. Some tests of Einstein’s theory were the subject of the previous chapter; some of its applications are the subject of this.
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