Customer Reviews

Introduction to the Theory of Relativity (Dover Books on Physics)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book describes the foundations of relativity in a clear and concise way. The development of tensor analysis is especially clear. It is great for anyone who has studied calculus, differential equations, and classical physics. I highly recommend it.

Don't know of a superior first exposure to relativity. It starts with elementary situations and examines the conflicts with pre-relativistic kinematical viewpoints. This motivates the requirements for special relativities' postulates and their immediate consequences.

From here, the more complex issues of special relativity are dealt with in an orderly fashion; e.g. rigid body dynamics, relativistic hydrodynamics and electromagnetic theory from a relatavistic point of view.

General tensor analysis is covered in a separate chapter for pursuing the general relativity chapters of the book. Incidentally, this chapter is among the most clear expositions on tensors out there.

Finally, general relativity is covered in the same stepwise fashion as was done in the special relativity chapters. The natural introduction of more complex ideas which start from basics is perhaps, the single reason why this book is a hard to beat introduction to relativity.

After a thorough digestion of Bergmann, one is ready to spring up to the next level, the masterful Weinberg.

This book is one of the first introductions to the theory of relativity that has the endorsement of the discoverer of the theory. Albert Einstein was alive when the book was first published, and writes the foreward to the book. Individuals who want to learn relativity should still take a look at this book, in spite of the somewhat outdated mathematical notation. In more contemporary textbooks and monographs the physical intuition is usually sacrificed and replaced with mathematical formalism. But here the author puts the main emphasis on the physics behind the subject. It is one of the few books still in print that discusses the relativistic mechanics of mass points and continuous matter.

The reader will also get an overview of early approaches to unified field theories. Historians of science will be interested in particular with this discussion. It is amazing how much has changed in this area since this book was published in 1942. The advent of superstring and M-theory has given physicists a view of reality that is set on a mathematical structure that is quite formidable. It now takes years for a student to obtain the necessary mathematical background to reach the frontiers of unified theories. In this book, it only takes the reading of the first two parts to be able to understand the author's overview of unified field theories. Particular attention should be paid to the treatment of the gauge-invariant geometry of Hermann Weyl, because of its relevance to the construction of gauge theories in elementary particle physics. The geometry of Weyl is constructed using a symmetric tensor representing the gravitational field and a pseudovector that represents the vector potential. When a gauge transformation is applied to this vector potential, it changes by a gradient, which, as the author remarks, is the historical reason for calling the addition of a gradient to the electromagnetic vector potential a gauge transformation. In addition, variational principles play a role in this discussion, and these principles have wide applicability to the quantization of gauge theories in modern developments. The role played by adding extra dimensions to formulate a field theory is summarized here by the author in his discussion of five-dimensional field theories and Kaluza-Klein theories. Ten- and eleven-dimensional theories now dominate modern unified theories. It would be very interesting to know what the author and Einstein would have thought about the theories of today, entrenched as they are in the most complex mathematical constructions ever applied to physical theory.

Hey, it's endorsed by big Al, himself. The math intro pretty much does it all, but it would be good if you have a firm grasp of vector calculus, and linear algebra. And intro undergraduate physics wouldn't hurt, either.

Although meant to be an introduction to Relativity, this book is hard to read right from the start. The formalism used throughout the entire book makes it hard for you to gain the courage to try to master Relativity in a technical depth.

It lacks a light introduction to the basic concepts of Relativity (without math), to use as the foundation from which to build the rest of the book. Not the best way for someone to start on Relativity...

Peter was able to give examples which made the complex easier to understand. The edges of the first sections in a copy in the Caltech library were black from use. I was privileged to be a guinea pig for the first edition.