A Sidney Coleman's Lectures on Relativity: New Book by CUP

Click For Summary
A new textbook on relativity, edited by Sidney Coleman's former students, is set to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. The book covers special and introductory general relativity, with chapter-by-chapter downloads available on the CUP website for those with appropriate credentials. Early reviews highlight valuable discussions on Green's functions, the EM field tensor, and mass renormalization, reflecting Coleman's effective teaching style. However, readers should note that the book consists of lecture notes rather than a comprehensive treatise on the subject. Access to the book may be limited based on institutional affiliation or payment.
physicsworks
Gold Member
Messages
83
Reaction score
63
In case you haven't heard, there is a new textbook on relativity to be published by Cambridge UP in 2022. It is compiled and edited by Coleman's three students Griffiths, Derbes, and Sohn who took Physics 210 relativity course at Harvard in the late 60's when Sidney was teaching it.

The book consists of two parts devoted to special relativity and (beginning) general relativity. The entire book can be downloaded on a chapter-by-chapter basis on CUP website and is also available to pre-order on various platforms.

Those who have read Coleman's "Aspects of Symmetry" and his recently compiled lecture notes on QFT (again, by his students) may expect the new book to become pedagogically successeful, even though the lectures were delivered 50 years ago. I have only glanced through the first part on special relativity so far, but I can already note a nice discussion of Green's funcitons, an often omitted derivation of the EM field tensor due to a point charge in arbitrary motion, and an important discussion of mass renormalization in relativistic electrodynamics, among other things. In addition, Coleman's style of teaching physics is nicely conveyed by the editors and is apparent from reading the book. However, these are still lecture notes, so do not expect a full treatise on relativity (the second part of the book on general relativity is introductory).
 
  • Like
Likes vanhees71 and Demystifier
Physics news on Phys.org
It seems you must have appropriate credentials or money to download anything.
 
PAllen said:
It seems you must have appropriate credentials or money to download anything.
Sorry, I was accessing it from work when I last checked. The book can be downloaded on eduroam network as well.
 
physicsworks said:
Sorry, I was accessing it from work when I last checked. The book can be downloaded on eduroam network as well.
That doesn't help me either. I am not currently affiliated with any educational institution (or any institution at all - fully retired). But always a big fan of Coleman.
 
PAllen said:
I am not currently affiliated with any educational institution (or any institution at all - fully retired).
Sent via private messages.
 
physicsworks said:
Sent via private messages.
Hello sir, i'm a student at the university of Toulouse in France, therfore I do not have acces to eduroam. Would it be possible to have a digital copy sent as well ?
 
Moderator's note: Spin-off from another thread due to topic change. In the second link referenced, there is a claim about a physical interpretation of frame field. Consider a family of observers whose worldlines fill a region of spacetime. Each of them carries a clock and a set of mutually orthogonal rulers. Each observer points in the (timelike) direction defined by its worldline's tangent at any given event along it. What about the rulers each of them carries ? My interpretation: each...

Similar threads

Replies
12
Views
3K
  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
1K
  • Sticky
  • · Replies 33 ·
2
Replies
33
Views
9K
  • · Replies 6 ·
Replies
6
Views
2K
Replies
6
Views
2K
  • · Replies 18 ·
Replies
18
Views
3K
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
2K
Replies
32
Views
6K
  • · Replies 31 ·
2
Replies
31
Views
10K
  • · Replies 7 ·
Replies
7
Views
3K