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Title: Simply Einstein: Relativity Demystified by Richard Wolfson ISBN: 0-393-32507-5 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: November, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A thorough summary of SR
Comment: If you want to know more about relativity, at Amazon.com you can purchase lots of books. But where do you start?
Perhaps you have heard about general relativity [GR]. You might think you first have to learn GR. And then special relativity [SR] treats the special, more difficult cases of GR. That's wrong. Start with the relatively easy SR and then try the far more difficult GR. There are several books that treat SR at a level any intelligent person can handle. Most of them avoid mathematics. That's a pity. Mathematics aren't difficult in SR.
My introduction to SR was as follows:
I started with Relativity Visualized [Lewis Carroll Epstein] to acquire some feeling with SR.
Then I jumped to Space and Time in Special Relativity [N. David Mermin] that introduces lots of logical examples and thought experiments, I liked very much. After reading this book you are able to make your own thought experiments, which makes you more critical when reading 'other' books. Mermin shows you the difference between relativistic effects and non-relativistic effects of light traveling. Most books forget about this.
The next book was Understanding Relativity [Leo Sartori] who did a very good job on explaining Lorentz transformation and the corresponding spacetime diagrams.
I also read The Elegant Universe [Brian Greene] which is probably the best science book ever for a non-scientist. After reading about Calabi-Yau spaces you wonder what is the problem with understanding SR. I also read parts of Spacetime Physics [Taylor Wheeler] and I must say, Richard Wolfson explains some details of this book in a better way.
So Simply Einstein [Richard Wolfson] is a book I think is suitable for the more experienced reader in SR. It might not be the book to start with. Try some other books first. This book provides a very thorough summary of SR when you get lost in the other books. But after reading this book I was sure. Something is missing in educating SR and GR.
In SR most authors try to avoid mathematics while authors of GR books think you know everything about tensor calculus. At this moment I do not understand GR yet. SR is four dimensional, but spacetime diagrams are mostly two dimensional for easier understanding. Why can't GR books treat the subject two dimensional to start with? If anyone knows a books that fills the gap between SR an GR I would be glad to know.
Back to Wolfson's book. Wolfson did very well by, e.g. explaining time dilation mathematically and telling you difference between sound waves and electromagnetic waves with respect to relativity. But, as far as I know, no book deals with time dilation in conjunction with length contraction. I developed my own thought experiments. I hope to find in one of the Amazon books the solution to the problem I created.
Imagine a train, with a length of 180 meter, moving at 0.6c. The train goes forward 180 meter every microsecond. That makes calculations easy. Ground observers measure the length of the train contracted, 144 meters. As far as I know no book deals with the fact how contraction takes place. If contraction happens symmetrically [which I can prove it should] then, an acceleration of the train of 0.2c in 0.2 microseconds will contract the train to 108 meters. The middle of the train will move on with an average speed of 0.7c or 42 meters in 0.2 microseconds. Due to the contraction the back end of the train will be positioned at 54 meter from the middle of the train. This means that the back end of the train has moved 42 meter [during the time of acceleration] plus [72-54 = 18 meter] while contracting = 60 meter in 0.2 microseconds. If this happens the back end of the train moves at the speed of light, as measured by the ground observers. That is not possible. So one way or another time must act differently when the train is accelerating. And that is just the theme of GR.
Which author handles this theme and can provide a bridge between SR and GR? Where can I find examples on accelerating trains and the warping of time? Maybe in Richard Wolfson's new book? I'm waiting for it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Worth reading twice
Comment: This is the best book I've read on Relativity. I think I understood all of it. The author emphasizes that the terminology you use can confuse people --- clocks don't really run slow, for example, it's just that your frame of reference is different so it seems that way.
The author does a good job explaining that gravity is a curve in spacetime. The book is full of helpful diagrams. I'm glad I found this one. Understanding Relativity is not easy, and even the smartest scientists have trouble explaining it. Wolfson got it right.
Rating: 5
Summary: Good first relativity book
Comment: The popular press Einstein relativity genre is certainly crowded. I don't think anyone should buy this book to add to a collection in the genre but it is certainly worth a look as a first book. With the obligatory "denial of math" in the preface, I'll never figure out why physicists have to be literate in the humanities but non-physicists don't have to be literate in math and science, we are taken through chapters that seem to be based on the good teacher technique of teaching from student misconceptions rather than just presenting facts. I was introduced to Wolfson as a great teacher in his Teaching Company course and was not let down with this book.
There are few inconsistancies and a lot of good science stuff here so don't be afraid to be demystified.
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Title: The Little Book of Time by Klaus Mainzer, Josef Eisinger ISBN: 0387952888 Publisher: Copernicus Books Pub. Date: 08 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: From Certainty to Uncertainty: The Story of Science and Ideas in the Twentieth Century by F. David Peat ISBN: 0309076412 Publisher: Joseph Henry Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene ISBN: 0375412883 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 10 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $28.95 |
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Title: The Golden Ratio : The Story of PHI, the World's Most Astonishing Number by MARIO LIVIO ISBN: 0767908163 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 23 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Yale Guide to Women's Reproductive Health: From Menarche to Menopause by Mary Jane Minkin, Carol V. Wright ISBN: 0300098200 Publisher: Yale University Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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