Customer Reviews

Relativity: The Special and the General Theory, Second Edition

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This paperback book is an attractive typesetting of einstein's original classic. However, we remind the buyer this paperback does not include the contributions of other authors in the hardback edition. Thus, the description and the search inside feature are somewhat misleading.

This book is just a re-print of the regular version with the same title- there is nothing special about it, so don't be fooled. Quite the contrary- it is horribly laid-out/edited and looks like someone never proof-read it for layout/format. It is even difficult to discern where each chapter (section) ends and the next begins (yes, it really is that bad). I haven't noticed any additional or different content in this book (despite what the title and description of the book elude to), when compared with the regular version.

Einstein's original [translated] content in the book is in fact all there, and intact, and naturally quite good, but this edition of the book is just a poor quality reprint. If you are interested at all in this title/topic, simply buy the regular version, "Relativity: The Special and the General Theory". It is a proper version of Einstein's book.

Is is an awesome thing to be able to read in Einstein's own words his explanation of these ground breaking concepts. It is not an easy read however. His language is elaborate and eloquent, but to a person like me who is trying very hard to make mental images of the concepts, distracting. I read other sources to attempt to clarify my understanding and found sources on the internet to support the book. The expanations in the appendices did not help either; they were not quite at layman's level as well.

Still, it was exciting to read and have a view into the thoughts of the great man.

It very difficult to critisize the man himself, but after all he was not a writer per se and was used to discussing relativity with other physicists. I can follow him. But thats only because I have read other books which make the subject much easier. Acually this was my first book on relativity which I bought years ago and threw it down in frustration. Then, recently I tried again with "Relativity Visualized" by L C Epstein. Now, finnaly I get it. It took a lot of intense concentration and re-reading, but I got it. And when it hit me my jaw dropped and all I could say was "WOW!" Of course, I lost it the next day and had to go thru it again. That's how difficult relativity is to comprehend and RETAIN. (Retaining it for more than a few minutes can seem as hard as learning it. Special Relativity is very evasive to the mind. And General Relativity is about ten times more difficult. But WHEN YOU GET IT, it's a feeling you never had before. It will change your life.)So I recommend the Epstein book. Lots of great "Thought Experiments" and a bit of neat "unique" (odd) humor, too. Einstein's book should be read, tho. After you've read other books about relativity and understand it at least "generaly" (pardon The Pun)If only to get a sense of the man. I read German quite well and still, I am sure I'd have problems reading the original, but someday I'll give it a shot.

Albert Einstein did no write a one-star book -- the one-star is for this version by a fly-by-night operation called BN Publishing.

A legitimate publisher includes a page showing the book's publishing history, giving details of, at least, the original publication, the original English version and the current version. BN Publishing give no such information; they don't even name the translator. They didn't bother to proofread the file they got hold of before printing it, so there are numerous typographical errors. The formulas are very indistinct and difficult to read. The index is omitted. Einstein often refers to other sections of the book by number, but the publisher omits the section numbers, thus making Einstein's references useless.

Amazon's Look Inside feature for this book currently shows a completely different version that has an introduction by Roger Penrose and a commentary by Robert Geroch. BN also claim on there website that those commentaries are included -- that is a lie, for the book has no text at all other than Einstein's. You might think that the website would tell you something about the publisher -- no, nothing, not even an address. Amazon should stop selling their books.

The moral: only buy public domain books from legimate publishers.

This is a classic science book. While Einstein recommended it for college students, it would be appropriate for all students who would like to know more about physics and science, and Einstein.
While it does require a great deal of work for most people to get through, it is certainly worthwhile making the effort - if only to get the flavor of what modern physics is all about. The effort is also excellent mental training for serious science students from elementary school to graduate school.
This is a book that for most people is to be read and reread and to be kept in your library. Also recommended is "The Evolution of Physics" by Infeld and Einstein.

Einsein says he wrote this small book so everyone of college calibre could
understand Relativity, with a little thought and discipline. Unfortunately,
he wrote it in 1916, in Germany (Switzerland?) where college calibre people
knew more math than most current college calibre types. So even though he thinks he's being clear and logical, unless you have the math knowledge you won't be able to follow his thinking. Besides, my understanding is that, even over 100 years after he published the theory, very few people actually understand it.
Kudos to him for trying to explicate his reasoning - but unfortunately simple and clear to Einstein is something different to the rest of us!

First let me say that if you are considering buying this book, buy it!

It is amazing that Einstein could have explained these concepts in the "dumbed down" way he did so shortly after publishing his work on relativity. However, this book isn't one to be read in a weekend. At least, not for me. I guess I imagined some simple explanation of relativity. There is no such thing. The analogies he makes are sometimes hard to understand and often I would wish there were more formulas and less words (I study math at the graduate level but have no real knowledge of differential forms: the language of general relativity)

If you have a good imagination, I have no doubt that you will breeze right through this book. I sometimes need something concrete and visual, I'm not always so good at visualizing things myself. The pictures he paints are amazing though. The way he breaks down the complexities of general relativity in such a way is incredible.

So poorly edited (I is intended generally to be 1 in many equations) that the reader is distracted by typos. Not for the faint of heart.

I first read this book about twenty five years ago while still in school. I recently bought a copy for a colleague. Read it if you are not a physicist; Einstein wrote it for us non-physicists. It is somewhat analagous to Stephen Hawking's A Brief History Of Time.

T. Bah Tanwi, IV, MD