Customer Reviews

Special Relativity (M.I.T. Introductory Physics)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was extremely helpful when I was taking a class on special relativity. The author introduces new concepts and rules in a very logical order, and the examples clearly illustrate the material. The book is written very clearly, especially for such a complicated subject. The problems in the back of every chapter allow you to test yourself and make sure you have grasped the material, since some of them have answers in the back of the book. Overall, a great book to either teach special relativity to yourself, or as a companion for a special relativity class.

If you are looking for the fastest way to learn and use special relativity (this is not about general relativity as the previous reviewer says), this is not the best book to use.

After an introductory chapter 1, which quickly previews much of the later material, French systematically analyzes the many observations and contradictions (the Michelson-Morley experiment just one of them), astronomical and laboratory, about the behavior of light that fitted neither an ether-wave model or a particle model. We are thus lead to a deeper appreciation for Einstein's insight and genius in his creation of the special theory of relativity; it was much more than just an extension of the Lorentz-transformations.

French is a master at his subject, and his systematic elucidation will reward the reader with a deep understanding. His problems are very well designed, and he provides answers which is always very helpful in learning.

If you have some time, and would like also to gain historical perspective about what it was like to struggle for a consistent theory in a mass of contradictory observations from the world view of Newtonian mechanics, I highly recommend this book.

"Special relativity" is discussed in many classical mechanics, electromagnetism and quantum / modern physics textbooks. You may learn different aspects of this subject from these books.

This book is specifically designed and written for those who want to learn special relativity comprehensively from one single source.

The book starts with the basics of the theories behind special relativity with simple arguments and plain language. In the first 5 chapters, you learn the mechanical fundamentals of special relativity. The examples and end-of-chapter problems are very useful and instructive. Furthermore, the answers to all problems are given in back of the book as well, which enables you to check your answers. Starting from chapter 6, more advanced topics are introduced, like momentum, energy, basic electromagnetism and so forth. Again, the problems should be solved by students in order to gain a thorough comprehension of the subject matter. The diagrams and pictures in the book are also very helpful to understand the concepts.

The bibliography at the end of the book can be used to consult for further discussions, because special relativity has many applications in various areas of physics.

To sum up, this book, all by itself, can be used to learn and understand special relativity very well in a short period of time, because it is concise, simple, effective, pedagogically well-prepared and very suitable for self-study. You do not need any other fancy, expensive book. A.P. French does an excellent job in laying out the principles of special relativity with illustrative examples and problems. It deserves every penny you paid.

I purchased this classic work at MIT, circa 1972, and have referenced it too times to remember. When I bought it, the book was part of the M.I.T. INTRODUCTORY PHYSICS SERIES. It contains about everything one could wish for on the subject matter. The derived transformations for acceleration and force (i.e. of d(mv)/dt) have been especially useful, and are not often included in other books. It is truly a gem, created by a world class physics instructor at the top of his game. G.R.Dixon.

This is the best book on special relativity that I have ever come across. It truly teaches the reader where all the ideas from special relativity come from. The author spends incredible time trying to explain difficult ideas in a fashion that is as clear as possible. This maybe makes it lose points from the standpoint of brevity and aesthetics, but French's primary goal here is exactly what it should be: to be as clear as possible about the physical ideas. I definitely strongly recommend this superb book to any student of special relativity.

Very little prerequisites are required, just basic calculus (even single variable is sufficient). More than anything the reader needs to be willing to think through the ideas carefully and confidently. At the end of the book, the reader is rewarded by learning how the magnetic field (and corresponding magnetic field laws) has to exist as a natural consequence coulombs law and the principle of special relativity. This ties into advanced ideas on electrodynamics (and can be pursued further in an also excellent book on electrodynamics by Schwartz).

I do have a few potential criticisms of this book. The initial chapter on the history of the field is nice, but it definitely delays the reader (who is willing to take on face the experimental finding that the measurment of the speed of light is the same regardless of one's [inertial] state of motion) that is anxious to get on to SR. Another real criticism of this book is that despite its exceptional explanations of the physical insight and motivation behind SR and its key formulas, it does not nicely develop its four-dimensional formulation. This may be out of the scope of this book, but it really is essential for the development of the general theory of relativity (and is important to understand advanced treatments of electrodynamics such as that by Schwartz mentioned above).

If you have time (and are also looking for an 'easier' read), it is worth reading Wheeler's spacetime physics after this book. That book gives better insight into the geometric nature of relativity than this book and thus helps the reader build up to GR. However, despite also being a good book, the wheeler book teaches you how to 'do' SR but really fails at logically developing the subject and explaining where the (initially very counter-intuitive) ideas come from. That is where French really excels.

French's textbook was required reading for the junior level modern physics course for physics majors that I completed 38 years ago. Although this book gives advanced undergrads what they need in the way of special relativity, it is written at a level accessible to Freshman. In addition to the basic introduction to Lorentz transformations, four vectors and Minkowski diagrams are also addressed. Some E&M related issues are also included. This books stops short of discussing topics that require the Einstein summation notation such as the metric tensor, covariance, and contravariance. For an introduction to tensors in special relativity I would recommend Joshi's Matrices and Tensors in Physics or Mould's Basic Relativity.

I should also say that French is the first book that I go to when I need to brush up on special relativity--a topic never far from my heart as the electrons in the electron microscopes that I use travel at a good fraction of the speed of light. So whether you are a college Freshman just taking your first serious look at special relativity, or a professional scientist needing a little help with this intuitively illusive topic, this book is for you!

This is a wonderful book, I really enjoyed it and I recommend all of A.P French's books. Very clear writing, no confusion, it's a joy to read.

This book is exactly what you think. It's a textbook about special relativity written in 1968 - fortunately exactly nothing of value has changed in the field since then (inb4 angsty relativity specialists disagreeing with me - the math is the math is the math). I highly doubt anyone is buying this for any reason other than for a physics class, but on the off chance that someone is, here's some actual thoughts: it seems to be relatively well written and straightforward (if you can ever say relativity is straightforward). A bit dry, but it is a textbook. My copy is more than a bit faded since, well, it's from 1968, but it's still in good enough shape. I guess I would recommend it if you want to read a special relativity textbook for fun?

not for self study. a very good book for those who already have a grasp of relativity and wish to further their abilities. luckily, it has most of the answers in the back so you can use it to learn relativity for the first time if you so choose.

The beauty of this book is the simplicity of the math used and the excellent use of language to communicate the ideas. One of the clearest written science books I've ever read. The book is out of print, but I inherited a copy from my Dad who was a Physics teacher.