INTRODUCTION TO SPACETIME
A First Course on Relativity
by Bertel Laurent (Stockholm University, Sweden)
Foreword (64k)
Table of Contents (136k)
Chapter 1: Clocks and Acceleration
Chapter 1.1: Measuring Time (253k)
Chapter 1.2: Measuring Acceleration (275k)
Chapter 1.3: The Principle of the Maximal Proper Time (214k)
Chapter 1.4: Events. Space-Time (208k)
Chapter 1.5: Parallel World Lines (306k)
The theory of relativity is tackled directly in this book, dispensing with the need to establish the insufficiency of Newtonian mechanics. This book takes advantage from the start of the geometrical nature of the relativity theory. The reader is assumed to be familiar with vector calculus in ordinary three-dimensional Euclidean space.
Contents:
- Principles. Basic Applications:
- Clocks and
Acceleration
- Vector Algebra
- Vector Characteristics
- Simultaneity and Space Distance
- Linear Independence
- Relative Velocity and Four-Velocity
- Two-Dimensional Spacetime
- Plane Waves
- Particle Reactions
- Curved World Lines
- Tensors:
- Definition and Examples
- Algebraic Properties
- Tensor Fields
- Spacetime Volumes
- Currents
- Electrodynamics:
- Sourcefree Electromagnetism
- Electro-Magnetism with Sources
- Solution of the Wave Equation
Readership: Undergraduates and graduates in astronomy and astrophysics.
"Bertel Laurent starts off with the notion of time lapse being maximal in that inertial frame of reference which is freely floating. From then on the theory is derived in an essentially geometric way, which gives great clarity ... Any student with an inclination to accept special relativity (and one would hope that this includes all students of mathematics and physics now) will find his understanding greatly deepened by this elegant book."
C W Kilmister
King's College, UK |
"I would certainly recommend reading this book, which should produce some illumination and provoke some reflection on the subject and its logical structure..."
| General Relativity and Gravitation |
| 204pp |
Pub. date: Jan 1995 |
