Relativity in Curved Spacetime: Life Without Special Relativity

by Eric Baird

Relativity theory has become one of the icons of Twentieth Century science. It's reckoned to be a difficult subject, taught as a layered series of increasingly difficult mathematics and increasingly abstract concepts. We're told that relativity theory is supposed to be this complicated and counter-intuitive. But how much of this historical complexity is really necessary? Can we bypass the interpretations and paradoxes and pseudoparadoxes of Einstein's special theory and jump directly to a deeper and more intuitive description of reality? What if curvature is a fundamental part of physics, and a final theory of relativity shouldn't reduce to Einstein's "flat" 1905 theory //on principle//? "Relativity..." takes us on a whistlestop tour of Twentieth Century physics - from black holes, quantum mechanics, wormholes and the Big Bang to the workings of the human mind, and what would physics look like without special relativity? 394 printed pages, 234×156 mm, ~200 figures and illustrations, includes bibliography and index www.relativitybook.com

394 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2007

Reviews

[R Nair · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an excellent book! Full of ideas one doesn't come across in other popular science works. This, although not suitable as an introductory text in the pop-science category, definitely is one that those with a previous, passing familiarity with special and general relativity would love to peruse. Highly recommended.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not surprised there are very few reviews of this as I understood almost none of it - but that's what I like in this sort of book. My partner picked it up as a present for me in a charity shop and I spent some very pleasant times just reading through the section headings, although having now read it cover to cover I'm not sure why I found 'Arbitrary suspension of the Equivalence Princlple' or 'Attempts to eliminate the "dark star" explanation' so enthralling. I liked the name of Acoustic Metrics but after looking it up on the internet I am no wiser. Nonetheless I have enjoyed it a lot.