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Relativity for Everyone

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This book is about light, energy, mass, space, time, and gravity: it is through these concepts that we explain the theory of special relativity and the theory of gravity, known as the theory of general relativity.
We will use many thought experiments and show how physicists create and solve models. This method is the one used by Einstein himself. He understood the theory through both physical and geometrical pictures. We will follow Einstein’s original train of thoughts as closely as possible, even using some of his own thought experiments.
We will present some involved arguments. Nevertheless you only need your imagination but no complicated mathematics to understand the essence of it all. However, the beauty of physics is that we can calculate the numbers. Therefore, we present the equations of the theory of relativity together with the most important exact solutions only by using elementary mathematics. Even the Einstein equation of gravity showing the bending of space and time, we present and solve in detail and in common language. By the end, we will see why the theory of general relativity is the simplest theory of gravity.
That is to say there is a common misconception about general relativity: that it is impossible to understand without higher mathematics, and that it is therefore only for a few experts. However, already in 1973 the famous textbook “Gravitation”1 advises on how to explain general relativity.
Only three basic principles are invoked: special relativity physics, the equivalence principle, and the local nature of physics. They are simple and clear. To apply them, however, imposes a double task: (A) take space-time apart into locally flat pieces (where the principles are valid), and (B) put these pieces together again into a comprehensible picture. To undertake this dissection and reconstitution, to see curved dynamic space-time inescapably take form, and to see the consequences for physics: that is general relativity.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Relativity for Everyone

Call Number

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Publisher

USA : Springer Cham Heidelberg., 2015

Collation

1-148

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

978-3-319-17891-2

Classification

NONE

Content Type

-

Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

2nd Edition

Subject(s)

Science

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

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