  We survey many of the important properties of spherically symmetric
spacetimes as follows. We present several different ways of describing a
spherically symmetric spacetime and the resulting metrics. We then focus our
discussion on an especially useful form of the metric of a spherically
symmetric spacetime in polar-areal coordinates and its properties. In
particular, we show how the metric component functions chosen are extremely
compatible with notions in Newtonian mechanics. We also show the monotonicity
of the Hawking mass in these coordinates. As an example, we discuss how these
coordinates and the metric can be used to solve the spherically symmetric
Einstein-Klein-Gordon equations. We conclude with a brief mention of some
applications of these properties.
