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Spacetime Physics 2nd Edition
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Written by two of the field's true pioneers, Spacetime Physics can extend and enhance coverage of specialty relativity in the classroom. This thoroughly up-to-date, highly accessible overview covers microgravity, collider accelerators, satellite probes, neutron detectors, radioastronomy, and pulsars. The chapter on general relativity with new material on gravity waves, black holes, and cosmology.
- ISBN-100716723271
- ISBN-13978-0716723271
- Edition2nd
- PublisherW. H. Freeman
- Publication dateMarch 15, 1992
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions8.45 x 0.66 x 10.81 inches
- Print length320 pages
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Product details
- Publisher : W. H. Freeman; 2nd edition (March 15, 1992)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0716723271
- ISBN-13 : 978-0716723271
- Item Weight : 1.68 pounds
- Dimensions : 8.45 x 0.66 x 10.81 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #170,379 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #45 in Physics (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors

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Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Edwin F. Taylor was born in Oberlin, Ohio, where his father was Chairman of the Oberlin College Physics Department and a textbook writer. Edwin graduated from Oberlin College and earned a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University under Nicholaas Bloembergen, later a Nobel Laureate for work that had nothing to do with Edwin's thesis. Edwin was Assistant Professor at Wesleyan University. During a junior faculty sabbatical at Princeton University, he met John Archibald Wheeler, the grand old man of general relativity, with whom he wrote Spacetime Physics, a special relativity textbook. Back at Wesleyan, he failed on tenure because of his preoccupation with textbook writing, and joined the Science Teaching Center, later the Education Research Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There he wrote An Introduction to Quantum Physics with A.P. French while he was completing Exploring Black Holes, an introductory general relativity text with John A. Wheeler. For five years he was Editor of the American Journal of Physics. Later he received the Oersted Medal, the highest honor of the American Association of Physics Teachers, for "notable contributions to the teaching of physics". He is now Senior Research Scientist, Emeritus in the MIT physics department and is endlessly preparing the Second Edition of Exploring Black Holes with Edmund Bertschinger, cosmologist and Head of the MIT Physics Department. Draft chapters for personal or class use -- with request for comments and suggestions -- may be freely downloaded from exploringblackholes.com
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Relativity is a mysterious subject for the unexposed. Learning about relativity is not like learning how to apply math to designing a bridge or a guided missile. You need to develop insights that mature into intuition.
The book calls itself an "Introduction to Special Relativity." It sells itself way short. If you take your time with it, the book will give you an in-depth understanding of special relativity and some of the fundamental tenets of general relativity. It can't go in-depth with general relativity because of the math required.
I am a 76-year old experimental physicist finishing off a career in mostly aerospace engineering with liberal use of applied physics and math. I went through special relativity as an undergrad (mainly the Lorentz transformations) and general relativity as part of a grad course in classical mechanics. (My general relativity was mostly an exercise in tensor calculus, which I've forgotten because I never used it again. I did have the opportunity to use special relativity, but only a few times.)
The problem with most physics books and lectures is that they spend most of their space and time (no pun intended) on math. A notable exception is the set of Feynman Lectures on Physics. Another is this book; it should never have gone out of print -- are you listening, Dover? One reason for our preponderance of focus on math is that the math is necessary. However, many students come away from those books and courses with only superficial insight into the physics. They are so busy struggling with the math that they can't step back and see the bigger picture. They are not prepared to attack a problem that differs greatly from problems they've studied. What are we producing, applied mathematicians or physicists? If you haven't fully mastered special relativity, this book can give you that mastery and will make general relativity more meaningful if and when you're ready to tackle it. There is, however, a price to pay beyond the cost of the book: you have to spend quality time.
If you want to get a grasp of relativity, get this book, even if you have to buy it used as I did. It is without peer.
The book says that intuition is necessary to solve problems in relativity. Here is a quote from the book: "... intuition-- a practiced way of seeing -- is best developed without hurry." I suggest that you pay a lot of attention to the problems/exercises in the book. If you don't see a solution immediately (you probably will see one immediately on most of the problems), set it aside for a day and come back to it. You may find that on the second or third pass it seems easy. Strange concepts take time to sink in. Your subconscious mind will work for you in solving problems and play a key role in developing insight and intuition.
I only have one minor complaint. The authors in the newer version have gotten away from using the Greek letter beta (don't know how to put the actual greek letter into this field) for the ratio of the velocity of an object to the velocity of light. They still, however, use the Greek letter gamma for the time stretch factor. And a very minor quirk is the decision to use Sun, Moon, and Earth as names for what most of us would refer to as the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth.
I guess one other, not exactly minor, complaint would be that I can't find a solution manual with all of the solutions to the problems. The book does include the answers to the odd-numbered problems, however. I was able to buy the solutions manual to the original book, and it is extremely helpful in understanding the concepts.
I'm working my way slowly through the book, doing all of the problems, in hopes of being able to use some of the examples when I am a substitute teacher in high school physics classes. Unfortunately, relativity is no longer taught in AP Physics, only in IB Physics.
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If you are interested in this topic, you should try to get hold of the first edition; this book is the second edition. It is seriously dumbed-down from the original, I assume because the authors wanted to reach a wider public. I purchased a copy after having read a first edition because I was hoping to see the mathematics section extended. It is the reverse; the book is almost like a comic book with its simple-minded sketches and pictures.












