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The theory presented in this book is a combination of Einstein's original special and general relativity, but now the starting point is not the propagation of light but the expansion of the Universe. The traditional Hubble constant H0 (which is not constant) is called in this book- the Hubble parameter. Its value at low gravity is denoted by h, and its reciprocal is denoted by . Thus is the Big Bang time (some authors call it the Hubble-Carmeli constant). This is actually the only constant that appears in this theory, just as c is the only constant that appears in Einstein's theory. There is no cosmological constant but there is a critical mass density. The theory presents general relativity in the space-velocity (of the receding galaxies) which is later on extended to include the time dimension. So far all experimental findings are satisfied by this theory. ... Read more

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This volume contains the proceedings of the twelfth triannual International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation, the premier conference for presentation and discussion of new ideas in relativity and cosmology.The volume will contain the invited talks as well as short reports on the parallel workshops that took place at the meeting.It will be essential reading for all research workers in relativity, cosmology and astrophysics. ... Read more

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This book is about the mathematical theory of light propagation in media on general-relativistic spacetimes. The first part discusses the transition from Maxwell's equations to ray optics. The second part establishes a general mathematical framework for treating ray optics as a theory in its own right, making extensive use of the Hamiltonian formalism. This part also includes a detailed discussion of variational principles (i.e., various versions of Fermat's principle) for light rays in general-relativistic media. Some applications, e.g. to gravitational lensing, are worked out. The reader is assumed to have some basic knowledge of general relativity and some familiarity with differential geometry. Some of the results are published here for the first time, e.g. a general-relativistic version of Fermat's principle for light rays in a medium that has to satisfy some regularity condition only. ... Read more

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This is a text on classical general relativity from a geometrical viewpoint. Introductory chapters are provided on algebra, topology and manifold theory, together with a chapter on the basic ideas of space-time manifolds and Einstein's theory. There is a detailed account of algebraic structures and tensor classification in general relativity and also of the relationships between the metric, connection and curvature structures on space-times. The latter includes chapters on holonomy and sectional curvature. An extensive study is presented of symmetries in general relativity, including isometries, homotheties, conformal symmetries and affine, projective and curvature collineations. Several general properties of such symmetries are studied and a preparatory section on transformation groups and on the properties of Lie algebras of vector fields on manifolds is provided. ... Read more

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This excellent textbook offers a unique take on relativity theory, setting it in its historical context. Ideal for those interested in relativity and the history of physics, the book contains a complete account of special relativity that begins with the historical analysis of the reasons that led to a change in our view of space and time. Its aim is to foster a deep understanding of relativistic spacetime and its consequences for Dynamics.

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All papers were peer reviewed. Research advances in gravitation and general relativity are discussed, ranging from classical to quantum theories of gravity. Relativistic theories have become the basic model for new research fields encompassing importantexperiments and observations which represent a frontier on which Einstein's theory of gravity can be tested. This will provide some new insight into the field of gravitational physics. The proceedings will be a valuable source for advanced graduate students and research workers at all levels.

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A classic of elementary relativistic pedagogy! This straight-forward book introduces readers to the conceptually tricky subject of relativityin understandable terms. The writing is crisp and clearly written by someonewho is aware of the conceptual difficulties that nonscientists have in coming togrips with relativity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Lucid for anybody
I remember reading this book right after high school.I had read Lincoln Barnett's book, which was good in laying out the concepts; however, Barnett's book left you feeling partially informed like most popular texts do.Mermin's book was different.He takes you through the mathematics and leaves you fully informed.When I first read Mermin's book, I recall worrying that the later chapters might be difficult.But, when I got to the last chapter, I found the pace of reading just as serene as the first chapter.I was delighted to have made it all the way through.David Bohm's book is a waste of time.Bohm indulged in publishing for profit and his authority in science is commercial, not professional.Bohm may have made some interesting speculations about gnosticism; however, gnosticism and modern physics are irreconcilable concepts.There are plenty of used copies of the older edition that cost less than a buck.The later edition doesn't add anything new.My only negative criticism is Mermin's association of special relativity with Einstein, who had nothing to do with it.In fact, if you look at Einstein's papers, his mathematics is entirely wrong and anti-thetical to special relativity theory.For example, he has a habit of dividing by zero when he doesn't know how to obtain a result.He neglects to put a subscript "zero" under "e" for e=mcsquared.This latter mistake gives rise to an entirely different theory that he claims to be making.It also shows plagarism from Olinto De Pretto who later corrected this mistake.De Pretto formulated this equation years before Einstein's paper came to print.The only reason I can gather for maintaining Einstein's authorship of this famous equation is the myth of juwish genius.The German superman has been replaced by the weak backed, wild haired, shifty eyed juwish superman.Mermin is a great expositor but a lousey historian.

A classic
For anyone who wants to understand special relativity, even those who may not be particularly adept at physics or higher math, this is the book.I spent months searching for a clear resolution of the "twin paradox" (aka, "clock paradox") without success.This is the *only* book I've ever found that accomplishes it, no other physics text I could find (and I examined 23 of them at the UCSD S&E library) provided a comprehensible explanation.

This is nothing short of a spectacular piece of work.There is no way to go wrong with this book if you have any interest in the topic at all.I'm confident that even well-experienced professional physicists could find a good many new and useful insights in it.And the best part is, this book is easily accessible by practically anyone having even entry level scientific awareness.It's a genuine classic.

Unquestionably the best intro to Special Relativity I've read
And that includes Epstein's "Relativity Visualized" and Wolfson's "Simply Einstein".My impression is that Mermin is truly intelligent and a good teacher.I found some of the other books talked down to me or spent time explaining how Michelson (or was it Morley) was abused as a child instead of sticking to the subject.I intend to buy Mermin's other book on the subject "It's About Time".

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a reasonably technical mind and wants to get a firm grasp on this subject.

also good for "specialists"-to-be too
I'm writing this review based on my impressions of this book when I read it 9 years ago as an undergraduate physics major at Berkeley.We used it in an honors sophmore-level physics class for physics majors.I'm know a physics grad-student at UCSB. I want to dissavow the impression you might have that this is just a light-weight, pop-science book.This book is very axiomatic and it really tries to "prove" relativity to the reader.The beginning chapters will motivate the postulates of special relativity (eg: "the speed of light is the same in all reference-frames"), and you will learn how to DERIVE the Lorentz transformations from them. (...which is the major thrust of the book.On a side note: topics like why E=mc^2 aren't discussed until the end.)This is why we used it in our class.The students taking the regular Berkeley physics class only memorized the Lorentz transformations and plugged them in blindly.I felt we learned a great deal more than they did. I think this book is billed as a descriptive introduction to relativity for non-specialists because it's clear and easy to read (although perhaps a bit verbose), and because doesn't use any fancy math, just basic geometry (right-triangles, the pythagorean theorem).This doesn't mean it should be shuned by specialists-to-be.This was my first introduction to relativity and at the time, I felt completely satisfied with my understanding of the material after reading it.

An Essential Guide to Modern Physics
This book was astounding. I had my share of knowledge in physics: Newtonian Mechanics, Electrodynamics and Magnetism, Optics, etc. This book took my preconceived ideas of how the Universe worked and all but threwthem out the window.

Mermin's description of why the old physical modelis inadequate was very descriptive and informative - even for someone witha highschool physics background. Numerous examples and analogies bring tounderstanding many difficult and abstract concepts. As for the skeptic . .. well, he deals with them in the later part of the book (I was one ofthem).

This book reads like a Science Fiction novel. Yet the topicspresented could not be more real.

We have Einstein to thank for thePrinciples and Theories of Special Relativity, and Mermin to thank forcommunicating them to the general population.

I recommend this book toeverybody; physicist or not. You cannot fool youself into thinking you havean understanding of the universe until you read and comprehend the topicscovered in this book.

Enjoy! ... Read more

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Volume 5 has three parts, dealing with General Relativity, Epistemological Issues, and Quantum Mechanics. The core of the first part is Hilbert’s two semester lecture course on ‘The Foundations of Physics’ (1916/17). This is framed by Hilbert’s published ‘First and Second Communications’ on the ‘Foundations of Physics’ (1915, 1917) and by a selection of documents dealing with more specific topics like ‘The Principle of Causality’ or a lecture on the new concepts of space and time held in Bucharest in 1918. The epistemological issues concern the intricate relation between nature and mathematical knowledge, in particular the question of irreversibility and objectivity (1921) as well as the subtle question whether what Hilbert calls the ‘world equations’ are physically complete (1923). The last part deals with quantum theory in its early, advanced and mature stages. Hilbert held lecture courses on the mathematical foundations of quantum theory twice, before and after the breakthrough in 1926. These documents bear witness to one of the most dramatic changes in the foundations of science.

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A famous result of Christodoulou and Klainerman is the global nonlinear stability of Minkowski spacetime. In this book, Bieri and Zipser provide two extensions to this result. In the first part, Bieri solves the Cauchy problem for the Einstein vacuum equations with more general, asymptotically flat initial data, and describes precisely the asymptotic behavior. In particular, she assumes less decay in the power of $r$ and one less derivative than in the Christodoulou-Klainerman result. She proves that in this case, too, the initial data, being globally close to the trivial data, yields a solution which is a complete spacetime, tending to the Minkowski spacetime at infinity along any geodesic. In contrast to the original situation, certain estimates in this proof are borderline in view of decay, indicating that the conditions in the main theorem on the decay at infinity on the initial data are sharp. In the second part, Zipser proves the existence of smooth, global solutions to the Einstein-Maxwell equations. A nontrivial solution of these equations is a curved spacetime with an electromagnetic field. To prove the existence of solutions to the Einstein-Maxwell equations, Zipser follows the argument and methodology introduced by Christodoulou and Klainerman. To generalize the original results, she needs to contend with the additional curvature terms that arise due to the presence of the electromagnetic field $F$; in her case the Ricci curvature of the spacetime is not identically zero but rather represented by a quadratic in the components of $F$. In particular the Ricci curvature is a constant multiple of the stress-energy tensor for $F$. Furthermore, the traceless part of the Riemann curvature tensor no longer satisfies the homogeneous Bianchi equations but rather inhomogeneous equations including components of the spacetime Ricci curvature. Therefore, the second part of this book focuses primarily on the derivation of estimates for the new terms that arise due to the presence of the electromagnetic field. ... Read more

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Based upon the proceedings of the First International Conference on the History of General Relativity, held at Boston University's Osgood Hill Conference Center, North Andover, Massachusetts, 8-11 May 1986, this volume brings together essays by twelve prominent historians and philosophers of science and physicists. The topics range from the development of general relativity (John Norton, John Stachel) and its early reception (Carlo Cattani, Michelangelo De Maria, Anne Kox), through attempts to understand the physical implications of the theory (Jean Eisenstaedt, Peter Havas) and to quantize it (Peter G. Bergmann), to elaborations of the theory into a unified theory of electromagnetism and gravitation (Vladimir P. Vizgin, Michel Biezunski), and considerations of its cosmological extensions (Pierre Kerszberg, George F.R. Ellis).

This is the first volume to survey many of the most important questions in the history of general relativity, with many of the contributions drawing upon such original resources as the Einstein Archive. It is hoped that it will stimulate much-needed further research in this hitherto neglected area.

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Publisher: Macmillan And Company., LimitedPublication date: 1922Subjects: NATURAL SCIENCESPhysicsGeneral mechanics. Mechanics of solid and rigid bodiesNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more