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This compact yet informative Guide presents an accessible route through Special Relativity, taking a modern axiomatic and geometrical approach. It begins by explaining key concepts and introducing Einstein's postulates. The consequences of the postulates – length contraction and time dilation – are unravelled qualitatively and then quantitatively. These strands are then tied together using the mathematical framework of the Lorentz transformation, before applying these ideas to kinematics and dynamics. This volume demonstrates the essential simplicity of the core ideas of Special Relativity, while acknowledging the challenges of developing new intuitions and dealing with the apparent paradoxes that arise. A valuable supplementary resource for intermediate undergraduates, as well as independent learners with some technical background, the Guide includes numerous exercises with hints and notes provided online. It lays the foundations for further study in General Relativity, which is introduced briefly in an appendix.
This compact yet informative Guide presents an accessible route through Special Relativity, taking a modern axiomatic and geometrical approach. It begins by explaining key concepts and introducing Einstein's postulates. The consequences of the postulates – length contraction and time dilation – are unravelled qualitatively and then quantitatively. These strands are then tied together using the mathematical framework of the Lorentz transformation, before applying these ideas to kinematics and dynamics. This volume demonstrates the essential simplicity of the core ideas of Special Relativity, while acknowledging the challenges of developing new intuitions and dealing with the apparent paradoxes that arise. A valuable supplementary resource for intermediate undergraduates, as well as independent learners with some technical background, the Guide includes numerous exercises with hints and notes provided online. It lays the foundations for further study in General Relativity, which is introduced briefly in an appendix.
Einstein's theory of gravity can be difficult to introduce at the undergraduate level, or for self-study. One way to ease its introduction is to construct intermediate theories between the previous successful theory of gravity, Newton's, and our modern theory, Einstein's general relativity. This textbook bridges the gap by merging Newtonian gravity and special relativity (by analogy with electricity and magnetism), a process that both builds intuition about general relativity, and indicates why it has the form that it does. This approach is used to motivate the structure of the full theory, as a nonlinear field equation governing a second rank tensor with geometric interpretation, and to understand its predictions by comparing it with the, often qualitatively correct, predictions of intermediate theories between Newton's and Einstein's. Suitable for a one-semester course at junior or senior level, this student-friendly approach builds on familiar undergraduate physics to illuminate the structure of general relativity.
Einstein's theory of gravity can be difficult to introduce at the undergraduate level, or for self-study. One way to ease its introduction is to construct intermediate theories between the previous successful theory of gravity, Newton's, and our modern theory, Einstein's general relativity. This textbook bridges the gap by merging Newtonian gravity and special relativity (by analogy with electricity and magnetism), a process that both builds intuition about general relativity, and indicates why it has the form that it does. This approach is used to motivate the structure of the full theory, as a nonlinear field equation governing a second rank tensor with geometric interpretation, and to understand its predictions by comparing it with the, often qualitatively correct, predictions of intermediate theories between Newton's and Einstein's. Suitable for a one-semester course at junior or senior level, this student-friendly approach builds on familiar undergraduate physics to illuminate the structure of general relativity.