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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great book to start with., November 18, 2003
This review is from: Relativity Simply Explained (Paperback)
If you are looking for a comprehensive book to understand the nuances of Relativity theory, this isn't for you. However, if you are not mathematically inclined, or don't wish to dive into the math or physics just yet, this is a excellent choice. This was the first book that I read on the subject of Einstein's theory. I found it entertaining and actually fun to read. I have not read any of Gardner's other books, but his writing style in this one makes for an easy read. It does not feel like you are reading much of a physics books at all. Furthermore, the illustrations not only are well done, but they make it easier to understand the principles being explained. If you are looking to know the basics of this theory, this is best book to own. Simple to read, good explanations, uncomplicated. If you are looking for more depth, than you will certainly move on to another book after this, but this is an excellent one to start with.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
excellent but getting out of date, April 6, 2008
This review is from: Relativity Simply Explained (Paperback)
This is a wonderful, nonmathematical introduction to special and general relativity. Gardner is a talented popularizer, and the two-color illustrations help make this an enjoyable book to read. My only misgiving is that the book is getting out of date on many topics. Ch. 1-6 are fine, but ch. 7, Tests of Relativity, is sorely in need of updating, and ch. 10-12, on cosmology, predate the recent revolution that has made cosmology a high-precision science and revealed that the universe is even stranger than we thought. I would like to see Gardner hand off this book to another writer who can produce a new, up to date edition.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting and very philosophical, September 18, 2007
This review is from: Relativity Simply Explained (Paperback)
This is the 1997 Dover edition of Martin Gardner's 1976 "The Relativity Explosion", which was itself an update of the original 1962 book, published under the title "Relativity for the Million". This present edition contains a short chapter that attempts to update the 1976 version to 1997. Given that 10 years have passed since 1997 and that many new measurements of the cosmos have been made, some of the cosmology is a bit dated. This is not, however, a severe handicap as most of the book deals with Einstein's work dating back more than 80 years.
Gardner has avoided almost all mathematics, thereby producing a book that quite philosophical. It is therefore an adjunct to a physics text that contains much more of the mathematics of relativity. Given that this book aims to simply explain relativity theory, the most relevant question is how well does it do this? The answer of course depends upon the reader's background. I think that this book will be a hard slog for a person with no physics background, but if one is willing to abandon some things that they might feel are intuitively obvious then they should get quite a bit from the book. A person with some physics background should get more from the book; especially as the book clearly shows how the basic assumptions of Newtonian physics differ from those of Einstein. The discussion of Minkowski's four dimensional space-time approach is also very illuminating. (Since there is no math in the book, this and non-Euclidian geometry are only generally discussed. The implications of dealing with a four dimensional description of a universe that we can only perceive in three dimensions helped to clarify some misconceptions that I had concerning the various analogies used to explain general relativity.) The book will be an interesting adjunct for those with still more of a background, but they will probably find the lack of any math a great hindrance. They may also disagree with some of the assertions made in the book.
The last part of the book deals with the application of relativity theory to cosmology. The chapter on the "Twin Paradox" was particularly interesting as it points out that there is still quite a bit of controversy surrounding the implications of the theory of relativity.
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