Customer Reviews

Einstein's Theory of Relativity

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Born does one of the best jobs of anyone of explaining relativity to the interested person. The first half deals primarily with Newtonian mechanics and he later applies this under more extreme circumstances to bring out Einstein's theory. Born also addresses this subject very well mathematically (which is good, because otherwise no one could understand the subject), although his variables may be confusing initially as he uses letters which are not convention.

All in all it was probably the best book on relativity that I've read, and that's pretty good.

Dr. Einstein oft lamented that so few really understood his theories. He said that perhaps there was one or maybe two people that understood. It seems to me Max Born must be one of them. His work simplifies as much as possible without sacrificing the level of knowledge needed to grasp the topic and begin to see its implications. It is a complex topic but Max Born rises to the occasion to give us at least a glimpse into this important subject.

At times notation can be a distraction, at other times notation can cause confusion, as in E&M most notably. Max Born's book is a gem and if you can get around the mild distractions and focus on the ideas then you may even get around the paradoxes in Relatively, where "common sense" is a distraction.
Some gifted people can write and explain well the most complex ideas some cannot. Max Born succeeds one of the best popular books on Relativity.

Born spends the first half of the book developing an historical perspective of the time at which Einstein was grappling with Relativity. He leads us through all the major domains of Physics and arrives at Einstein's point of departure.

In the second half of the book, a full and complete review of Relativity is given.

Extensive use of physics equations is made throughout the book however for the reader looking purely for the historical perspective these can be safely assumed.

The notation comes from German: K for Kraft (force), b for Beschleuningung (acceleration), m for Masse (mass). It might be outdated, but that does in no way disqualify the content of a text. As for learning calculus in order to understand relativity: I believe Einstein once said he could explain relativity (maybe he meant special relativity) to a barmaid. Knowing calculus and differential geometry (for general relativity) would indeed provide one with a much deeper understanding of the theory, but one can get a good feel for the subject without it. So if you are looking for a basic introduction to relativity don't discard this one for those reasons. One good reason to choose this book is that it presents relativity in its natural context of electrodynamics, which really gives one a much clearer perspective, I believe.

This little book is a complete delight; if you can only take one physics book to bed with you at night, this might be it. Born reviews much of classical mechanics and E&M, and gives a great introduction to special relativity. There is a bit more on the history of ether than I really wanted to see, but that aside, this a wonderful, comprehensive, handy (not big and heavy) and inexpensive book. I highly recommend it.

The first 2/3 of the book is devoted to an overview of mechanics, optics and electromagnetism and how developments in each led to the ether theory being abandoned. The last 1/3 is relativity. The notation is a little alien (ie K for force, b for acceleration, etc) and some of the explanations are more complicated than they need to be (eg derivation of lorentz transformations is presented much more clearly in other books). The fact many concepts are explained differently here than in other books does offer a different angle and a bit more illumination on some topics.
A good book.

Note - This review is based on the 1962 Dover reprint. I gather from some of the negative reviews that there is a 2010 version that is incorrectly formatted and does not contain figures. This book is completely useless if it does not include the figures, so a perspective reader should be warned not to get the 2010 version if it lacks them.

Max Born was a great physicist who proposed a deeper meaning for quantum mechanics and received the Nobel Prize for his efforts. He was also a friend of Einstein's and therefore was in a great position to write about Einstein's Theory of Relativity. With all this going for it, I was expecting to like this book much more that I did. This is not to say that I did not like the book, only that I do not feel that the book was what I expected it to be. I write this review to alert a potential reader as to exactly what they will be getting, so that they are not surprised and possibly disappointed.

The first two thirds of the book are devoted to providing the necessary background for the subsequent discussion of the Theory of Relativity. I found this part of the book fascinating and useful, but please note; the book was originally written in German and uses German notation, i.e., K for force, b for acceleration, etc., which can be a bit annoying for a reader used to English conventions. It also uses the cgs system of notation instead of SI notation, again an annoyance, but not a very difficult hurdle to overcome. Of more importance is the fact that the book does not use any calculus, which is both good and bad. Without the simplification of calculus the development of mechanics is quite labored and more complicated than it is when calculus is employed. This is, however, not an entirely bad thing as it shows how Newton developed mechanics. Along the way you see differential calculus developing out of simple geometric arguments. (While he had developed a form of calculus, Newton did not use it in developing mechanics in the Principia. He used geometrical arguments of the sort used here, so one gets a feeling for how mechanics developed.) Born also provides information that is generally not available elsewhere. For instance, he shows exactly how Romer, with remarkable accuracy, calculated the velocity of light in 1676. Most other books only state that this was done or give a mostly useless general description of what he did. Born shows exactly what he did and runs through the calculation. Another subject that is generally overlooked is Ether Theory. Before reading this book I had the impression that Ether Theory was a general, but not very specific or accurate, theory to explain the propagation of light. Born shows that, far from being general or non-specific, Ether Theory was very developed and, within the experimental accuracy of the time, explained the existing data. This is important background that is necessary to understand the importance of Relativity Theory.

The last third of the book actually deals with the title subject,and is the reason why people read this book. Unfortunately, this was the part of the book that I liked least. This discussion of Relativity Theory provided in this book is not for beginners. The book jumps right in and uses the Minkowsky space/time formulation of Special Relativity, which evolves largely into an exercise in the rotational transformation of rectilinear motion in inertial systems. (If this scares you off, this is not the book for you.)

Einstein once said that any theory should be explainable to a barmaid. To understand this analysis of his theory I am afraid that the barmaid in question should be a college student, majoring in physics or mathematics. If you want an easier and more straightforward presentation, one should read Einstein's own book `Relativity" or Martin Gardner's "Relativity Simply Explained". Einstein did not use this space/time analysis to derive Special Relativity. Indeed, Minkowsky developed it to put Einstein's theory on a firmer mathematical basis. Initially, Einstein did not even like this approach as he felt it unnecessarily complex. It was only much later, when he was developing General Relativity, that he realized the utility of using space/time coordinates.

The approach to relativity given in this book is better suited to one who already understands the basic idea and wants a more mathematical foundation. As such, it is better suited to a college physics student than one who just wants a basic understanding of the subject. This is not to say that an advanced high school student could not get a lot from this book. No advanced math is used and most of the arguments are geometrical, so no advanced training is required. It is just that there are much simpler ways (such as that actually used by Einstein) to derive the expressions of Special Relativity than the ones used in this book.

The last section of the book deals with gravity and General Relativity. Since the mathematics of General Relativity is well beyond the scope of the book, Born opts for a non-rigorous approach: one that I found more satisfying than the somewhat rigorous approach he used for Special Relativity. There is a nice discussion of the tests for General Relativity and a very brief discussion of the calculation of the bending of light as determined by Newton's gravitational approach. Most people do not even realize that Newtonian mechanics predicts that starlight is bent by the gravitation of the sun, but that this effect is half as great as that predicted by General Relativity. (This classical calculation assumes that light has mass, the magnitude of which is unimportant because this mass term cancels out. However, the math only makes sense if the mass is not zero, which is only true when one considers relativity theory. Special relativity gives light a mass, but for euclidean space there is no deflection. The deflection only comes in when the non-euclidean space of General Relativity is considered.) Regardless of the validity of this classical calculation, the important point is that General Relativity correctly predicted the amount of the deflection.

The last ten pages of the book are devoted to the cosmological implications of General Relativity. While this section, updated in 1962, is completely out of date, it is nonetheless interesting. It provides a snapshot of cosmology before the measurements of the background temperature of the universe provided experimental support for the Big Bang Theory over its rival Steady State Theory.

Once again - a good book for advanced "students", but much less so for beginners.

Written over 60 year ago , original in German this is still probably one of the best popular books on Relativity.
Born, who personally knew Einstein worked with him can and can surely be acknowledged as one of the few people who could realistically compare himself intellectually to the master himself. Born's exposition of relativity is masterful. He realizes from the outset that it is vital to understand the historical context. Thus the book gives us a whirlwind tour of physics as it was in 1900.Only the later part of the book deals with the two theories of relativity.
Born's style is crisps and eloquent. He treats us to some nuggets of philosophy , wetting our appetites but never completely resolving the issue.
Surely every educated man or woman should have a basic understanding of one of humanities greatest achievements. Born is an excellent guide.
If I can dare to level some criticism of the book it is in its strange (German?) nomenclature. This should be reviewed. Also the typical modern reader would be better seved by a more calculus - orientated approach .But in Summary a great popular exposition of Relativity by one of Physics' great minds of the 20th century.
If that was not enough he also gave us Olivia Newton -John ( His granddaughter !)
Bravo twice!

This should not be the first book you read about Relativity. First, the history section, more than half the book, provides much more detail than you need. Second, the derivation of the Lorentz transformation using Minkowski diagrams is exceedingly complicated. Born tried introducing these diagrams early on in order to give you more insight. Its an interesting approach but I think it is much easier to learn the Lorentz transformation using a more direct route first. Then reading Born's method as a second book can give you a better understanding of the diagrams. (I recommend The Feyman Lectures Volume 1 as the best introduction to Special Relativity. For General Relativity, the book by Jean Eisenstaedt is very good.)

If you are interested in the history of science then this book provides a wealth of unique information. The detail on the the many different theories of the Aether that preceded Relativity exceeds any other book I have read. He gives you considerable insight into their rational and positive aspects. For example the dual fluid theory of electricity led naturally to the polarization of molecules as an explanation of dielectric behavior.

The thoroughness of this book is remarkable given when the first edition was written (around 1920.) It certainly was the best book of its kind for several decades and remains an excellent book to read once you understand the basics.