A delightful romp through the history of the notion of a black hole (a story in whichThorne has been an active participant). I doubt you'll wind up understanding verymuch relativity theory from reading this book, but you'll certainly have gained a vividimpression of some of the personalities involved in uncovering the mysteries of black holephysics. Note that Thorne is one of the triumvirate of authors of my favorite GTRtextbook (see MTW below).
As the title suggests, you can't expect to master a significant fraction of the basicnotions of GR in this book, but what Geroch does cover here is very well explained. A beautifully illustrated and very gentle introduction to the geometry of Minkowskispacetime of SR and then to the curved spacetimes of GR, including a clear intuitivediscussion of some features of Schwarzschild geometry (nonrotating uncharged black holes),by a leading physicist.
spacetime physics introduction to special relativity pdf download
This book is devoted to a rigorous mathematical treatment of the flat Minkowskispacetime of special relativity. It pays particular attention to the Lorentz groupand the causal structure of the theory, but also treats the electromagnetic field tensor,spinors, and the topology of Minkowski spacetime. This book won't teach you muchphysics, but is useful if you want to see special relativity put on a firm mathematicalbasis, or examine some of the more intricate technical implications of Lorentztransformations or SR causality.
This book is simply gorgeous. It offers a thorough and beautifully illustratedintroduction to everything from riemannian geometry, Cartan geometry, symplectic geometry,differential topology and Morse Theory to vector bundles and Pontryagin and Chernclasses. Applications to hamiltonian mechanics, GR, Yang-Mills theories, theStandard Model of particle physics, etc., are also sketched.
I read Introduction to special relativity by Robert Resnick.It is a beautiful book as an introduction. I got insights and intuition in special relativity.I want to learn special relativity at a more deeper level.Please recommend some books/research papers for special relativity?
"The Meaning of Relativity" - A.Einstein. This will help you make the connection between SR and GR - tensor notations, etc - since deeper then special relativity is general relativity, but I suppose you wanted to say "more general appliance", "arbitrary directions", etc.
The best book on special relativity that I have read is by A. P. French and has the title "Special Relativity (M.I.T. Introductory Physics)". Everything is very carefully and clearly derived and a lot of advanced topics are also included.
R. Geroch, General Relativity from A to B.Develops spacetime diagrams and radar measurements for a nonscience-major course at the University of Chicago. On a quick skim, it may seem verbose... but it is quite deep in terms of the foundations of relativity. Despite the title, there is a lot of special relativity developed.
R. Geroch, General Relativity (1972 Lecture Notes).( -gr.html) Special relativity is developed using spacetime diagrams, geometrical methods, and tensorial methods as much as possible. The transition to General Relativity is developed.The notes are for a graduate level course in relativity at U. Chicago.(R. Wald, who wrote General Relativity, acknowledges some influence by Geroch.)
H. Bondi, Relativity and Common Sense.Develops spacetime diagrams and radar measurements, using the $k$-calculus. (Secretly, the $k$ is the Doppler factor, which is an eigenvalue of the Lorentz Transformation.) The equations obtained are simpler and arguably more physical than the standard formulas. These methods were used in a series of BBC broadcasts to teach relativity to a general audience.
Too many books on Special Relativity. A recent one was written by Gabriel Barton, 'Introduction to the Relativity Principle', most likely on the same level AP French's book. Both of these books have excellent examples and try to emphasise the physics instead of the maths. I note Jackson, of electrodynamics fame recommends the book by Sard for undergraduates. His own graduate book condems some of the misconceptions found in undergraduate texts on relativity.
An introduction to general relativity, aimed atfirst year graduate students. It starts with a gentle introduction to geodesics in curvedspacetime. The course then describes the basics of differential geometry before turning tomore advanced topics in gravitation.
SPACE-TIME AND THE COMMUNITY OF BEINGS: SOME COSMOLOGICAL SPECULATIONS INTRODUCTION XERT EINSTEIN, in his essay "Relativity and the Problem of Space," makes several interesting comments on the implications of relativity theory for the Newtonian concepts of absolute space and time. Among these are the following: Since the special theory of relativity revealed the physical equivalence of all inertial systems, it proved the untenability of the hypothesis of an aether at rest. It was therefore necessary to renounce the idea that the electromagnetic field is to be regarded as a state of a material carrier. The field then becomes an irreducible element of physical description, irreducible in the same sense as the concept of matter in the theory of Newton.1 On the basis of the general theory of relativity ..., space, as opposed to" what fills space," which is dependent on the coorrdinates, has no separate existence.2 There is no such thing as empty space, i.e., a space without field. Space-time does not claim existence on its own but only as a structural quality of the field. Thus Descartes was not so far from the truth when he believed he must exclude the existence of an empty space. The notion indeed appears absurd, as long as physical reality is seen exclusively in ponderable bodies. It requires the idea of the field as the representative of reality, in combination with the general principle of relativity, to show the true kernel of Descartes' idea; there exists no space " empty of field." 3 1 Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and the General Theory (New York, 1961), pp. 149-150. 2 Ibid., p. 155. s Ibid., pp. 155-156. 480 SPACE-TIME AND THE COMMUNITY OF BEING 481 Space-time is not necessarily something to which one can ascribe a separate existence, independently of the actual objects of physical reality. Physical objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended. In this way, the concept "empty space " loses its meaning.4 These statements raise some interesting questions for the philosopher working within the Judaeo-Christian metaphysical and cosmological tradition. Einstein's concept of the spacetime continuum constituted by the field (or by the plurality of fields seen as interrelated) amounts in effect to a reduction of space-time to relation, to that which is constituted by a universal relational network. One may ask whether this concept is, as many seem to believe, a demolition of the classical and Christian view of the world, or whether, on the contrary, it amounts to a rediscovery of that view from the perspective of the vocabulary of contemporary physics. To ask the question in a slightly different way: Does relativity have anything to do with relativism and hence with the anti-ontological thrust of the latter? This question inevitably involves us in the more general question how the physical structure of the cosmos does or does not reflect the ontological structure of being-i.e., how is the cosmos as known by physics related to the world-order as the intelligible object of a philosophical cosmology? How are the various levels of cosmic order, from inorganic matter to the human level, related to one another? It will be the contention of the present essay that the relativistic concept of the cosmos not only is not destructive of the classical and Christian one, but converges with it, because the latter is grounded in the concept of being as being, and being in turn must be understood as the universal concept and reality which has reality by virtue of the community of beings, i.e., by virtue of relation. These concepts will be further clarified in the course of the discussion. Let it be clearly understood, however, that what follows does not pretend to constitute a rigorous logical derivation of a cosmological system but is 4 Ibid.," Note to the Fifteenth Edition," p. vi. 482 GEORGE A. KENDALL rather a series of speculations, of brief glimpses of areas of convergence which have drawn attention to themselves in the course of the struggle for ontological and cosmological truth. As such, they are presented as a step along the way in the search for understanding, not as... 2ff7e9595c
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