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Title: Very Special Relativity: An Illustrated Guide
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Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
List Price: $20.95
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| Very Special Relativity: An Illustrated Guide by Harvard University Press A little knowledge deepens | Years ago I took a course in symbolic logic. Our professor gave us some proofs created by Bertrand Russell. I loved working out the proofs on my own, and then checking my work against Russell. His clarity of thought was startling after my floundering.
At the end of the course, my professor gave me a copy of Russell's THE ABC OF RELATIVITY, which I read and re-read for years. (I'm currently using the 4th Revised Edition edited by Felix Pirani, 1985.)
As a general reader, I don't have a deep understanding, but Russell provided familiarity with the fundamental concepts of Einstein's theory. This beautifully graphic book has enhanced that understanding.
Sander Bais uses elementary geometry to illustrate his explanation of fundamental concepts like time dilation. The text and diagrams also illustrate the difference between Newtonian physics, in which time was universal, and Einsteinian physics, in which the speed of light is universal.
The text appears on one page; a spacetime grid appears on the opposite page, with red, yellow and blue arrows illustrating the text. [I wish a CD disc was included to animate the diagrams to aid my studies.]
Russell's ABC was helpful on each pair of Bais's pages. For example:
Russell: "If people could leave the earth and travel about for a time and then return, the time between their departure and return would be less by their clocks than by those on the earth: the earth, in its journey round the sun, chooses the route which makes the time of any bit of its course by its clocks longer than the time as judged by clocks which move by a different route. This is what is meant by saying that bodies left to themselves move in geodesies in space-time."
Bais: "It is comforting to see that w{minute} = w if v = 0, and maybe less comforting to see that w{minute} approaches 0 as v gets close to c."
[Image here a spacetime grid with red, yellow and blue arrows.]
If those three paragraphs make any (but not too much) sense to you and if you would like to learn more about relativity, I urge you to pick up a copy of Bais's book. I believe it will enhance your understanding of this important subject.
As Russell concludes in his book: "What we know about the physical world, I repeat, is much more abstract than was formerly supposed. ... The final conclusion is that we know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power." | | Very Special Relativity: An Illustrated Guide by Harvard University Press Product Description | Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, first published in 1905, radically changed our understanding of the world. Familiar notions of space and time and energy were turned on their head, and our struggle with Einstein's counterintuitive explanation of these concepts was under way. The task is no easier today than it was a hundred years ago, but in this book Sander Bais has found an original and uniquely effective way to convey the fundamental ideas of Einstein's Special Theory. Bais's previous book, The Equations, was widely read and roundly praised for its clear and commonsense explanation of the math in physics. Very Special Relativity brings the same accessible approach to Einstein's theory. Using a series of easy-to-follow diagrams and employing only elementary high school geometry, Bais conducts readers through the quirks and quandaries of such fundamental concepts as simultaneity, causality, and time dilation. The diagrams also illustrate the difference between the Newtonian view, in which time was universal, and the Einsteinian, in which the speed of light is universal. Following Bais's straightforward sequence of simple, commonsense arguments, readers can tinker with the theory and its great paradoxes and, finally, arrive at a truly deep understanding of Einstein's interpretation of space and time. An intellectual journey into the heart of the Special Theory, the book offers an intimate look at the terms and ideas that define our reality. (20080202) |
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