Education in Relativity Theory

witchesofus

I've been trying to teach myself some of the basics about relativity and other branches of physics theory, but I don't exactly know where to begin. I've read about and understand the basics, but I was wondering if you had suggestions: books, online articles, etc (undergraduate level, please!).

Thanks so much.

JesseM

Good online stuff:

http://www.oberlin.edu/physics/dstye...ein/SRBook.pdf -- "Relativity for the Questioning Mind", nice Q&A style book

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special_Relativity -- another good intro with a lot of helpful stuff about spacetime diagrams

http://www.einstein-online.info/elementary and http://www.einstein-online.info/spotlights -- conceptual introductions to both special and general relativity

http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Relativity.html -- Physics virtual bookshelf section on relativity, lots of good articles

http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teachi...410/index.html -- series of illustrated lectures, "Einstein for Everyone".

For books, Relativity from A to B by Robert Geroch is a good conceptual intro, some good undergrad textbooks are Special Relativity by A.P. French and Spacetime Physics by Taylor and Wheeler, and An Illustrated Guide to Relativity by Tatsu Takeuchi (haven't read this one yet as it just came out, but was admiring the illustrated approach in the sample pages on google books). For a popular introduction to the ideas of general relativity, Black Holes and Time Warps is very good.

yuiop

Wow Jesse! That is very helpful Thanks!

Daverz

Check out these recent threads:

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=439538
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=438732

in the book forum:

http://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=21

For an intro to special relativity, I recommend Mermin, It's About Time and the edition of Spacetime Physics with all the problems worked out in the back. For GR, Hartle's Gravity.

DaleSpam

I also really like Leonard Susskind's lectures on YouTube.

witchesofus

Wow. This is really, really helpful! Thank you! I'm definitely going to try to wade my way through all that!