What Are the Best Textbooks for Understanding Special Relativity?

[JM]

Hi all, I'm new and have been following the conversations for a few days.By way of getting acquainted, I wonder which textbooks, or other publications, you would recommend that describe the basis of the theory. I have read books by Einstein, Taylor and Wheeler, Feynman, and others. The difficulty with them is the lack of connection between the math and the physics.

 

[robphy]

What is your level of preparation?
Try
General Relativity from A to B https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0226288641/&tag=pfamazon01-20 by Geroch
Flat and Curved Space-Times
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198511698/?tag=pfamazon01-20 by Ellis and Williams,
General Relativity: A Geometric Approach
by Ludvigsen,
The Geometry of Spacetime: An Introduction to Special and General Relativity
by Callahan,
General Relativity https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226870332/?tag=pfamazon01-20 by Wald,
The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521099064/?tag=pfamazon01-20 by Hawking and Ellis

Even though a lot of these titles have "General Relativity", I feel they provide the essential spirit of how one should think about Special Relativity.

 

[neutrino]

Here are a couple of online sources...

http://vishnu.mth.uct.ac.za/omei/gr/

and a nice, little set of lecture notes

http://cosmo.nyu.edu/hogg/sr/

Hope these help.

 

[JM]

Thank you, robphy and neutrino, for your replies to my question. I have considerable background in vibrations and acoustics, but little in Maxwell's electrodynamics or general relativity. My specific interest now is in the derivation of the Lorentz transforms and the explanation of time dilation, space contraction, and the twin paradox. I have printed Prof Hogg's notes ( the first four chapters ). At first glance his approach looks familiar, but I would like to look closer before commenting further.