What is the best way to be a relativist ?

[Dark_knight90]

I really want to start going through relativity .. but I'm a little lost .. what is the easiest way to start ? .. I'd prefer to start it as Einstein did (with little mathematics) ..
There are some lectures on the internet from universities .. is that a good start ?? or you recommend something else ?

What about starting to read his 1920 paper about special and general relativity ? or maybe the 1905 paper ?

Please, tell me how a beginner can start ...

Thank you

 

[G01]

NEVER go to the original journal article as your first source if you can help it! This is a general rule I follow.

How much math is too much?

The best bet is to find a sophomore level modern physics text and crack it open.

Most special relativity sections in those texts will not use math higher than algebra, with a little bit of first year calculus. Would you still consider this too much math?

 

[ghwellsjr]

I would start with his 1905 paper and focus only on Special Relativity first. Keep in mind that when he talks about experience, he means experiments, and the most important experiments were those that showed that the round-trip speed of light is a constant. He talks about making this measurement with a light source, a mirror at a measured distance away, a clock or a timer, and a detector co-located with the source. After measuring the round trip time for the light to travel from the source, to the mirror, and back to the detector, you can calculate the round trip speed of light.

Then he talks about the impossibility of knowing how long it took for the light to traverse each half of the trip. This is the essence of the problem that SR deals with--we cannot know the one-way speed of light. But SR arbitrarily assigns the two halves to be equal, independent of the "absolute" motion of the experimental apparatus, as long as it is not accelerating. And everything else follows from this assignment. Once you grasp this concept, you'll be well on your way to mastering SR.

 

[Dark_knight90]

NEVER go to the original journal article as your first source if you can help it! This is a general rule I follow.

How much math is too much?

The best bet is to find a sophomore level modern physics text and crack it open.

Most special relativity sections in those texts will not use math higher than algebra, with a little bit of first year calculus. Would you still consider this too much math?

thank you for your reply .. well, seems that getting the original papers is not a good idea, okay, I will skip that for now ...

well, the problem is I study medicine and that is why i haven't been into Math so much but i took some calculus basics in school and I'm willing to expand my calculus knowledge if necessary .. I'm thinking of a long term plan to get more into modern physics and I just wanted to know how to start, that is why I asked the experts ..

Thank you :)

 

[Altabeh]

I really want to start going through relativity .. but I'm a little lost .. what is the easiest way to start ? .. I'd prefer to start it as Einstein did (with little mathematics) ..
There are some lectures on the internet from universities .. is that a good start ?? or you recommend something else ?

What about starting to read his 1920 paper about special and general relativity ? or maybe the 1905 paper ?

Please, tell me how a beginner can start ...

Thank you

If you want to become a physicist of any type, you have to have at least the passion it takes to stick to the material to the end everywhere and everytime you hit something related to physics! This is the first step! The second is to start from mathematics rather than going for physics without having a mathematical background as this is really vital to the understanding of physical implications! You msut know the language physics speaks to advance! Then I guess it is better to start from a book that is really able to look into the basics of relativity. There is no need to start from special relativity to get into GR but if you are used to follow the cult of traditionalist, get started by books covering both SR and GR such as Rindler, D'Inverno! Remember that your knowledge of mathematics is very crucial so do not lose the track of mathematics at all!

AB

 

[G01]

thank you for your reply .. well, seems that getting the original papers is not a good idea, okay, I will skip that for now ...

Well, I only say this because the original journal paper on anything is rarely the best pedagogical source to use when teaching the subject. Einstein created SR, but there have been 100 years of brilliant educators figuring out how best to teach it!

There will be algebra if you want to study SR even at a basic quantitative level. No way around that. You can probably get by with just algebra, for a first pass.

I have heard good things about this book:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0716723271/?tag=pfamazon01-20

It's an introduction for physics students in their second year. It seems the book focuses on algebra and trigonometry. So if you can recall those topics, this may be a good first pass.

 

[Dale]

I like the Leonard Susskind lectures as a nice conceptual overview with the bare minimum math. I don't think you can do it with less math without turning to a pop-sci treatment which I would discourage.

 

[pervect]

I really want to start going through relativity .. but I'm a little lost .. what is the easiest way to start ? .. I'd prefer to start it as Einstein did (with little mathematics) ..
There are some lectures on the internet from universities .. is that a good start ?? or you recommend something else ?

What about starting to read his 1920 paper about special and general relativity ? or maybe the 1905 paper ?

Please, tell me how a beginner can start ...

Thank you

I'd suggest getting a hold of the standard textbook by Taylor & Wheeler, "Space Time Physics". You can get the first chapter of the first edition online, http://www.eftaylor.com/special.html" but if you're serious you'd eventually want to get the whole book in its later edition.

I'm personally somewhat fond of Bondi's "Relativity and Common Sense", though it's somewhat dated by now, and while adequate to get some understanding of SR, it won't provide you with the background for later advanced topics.

The original journal articles are nice for historical purposes, but probably are not the easiest way to actually learn.

 

[Dark_knight90]

I would start with his 1905 paper and focus only on Special Relativity first. Keep in mind that when he talks about experience, he means experiments, and the most important experiments were those that showed that the round-trip speed of light is a constant. He talks about making this measurement with a light source, a mirror at a measured distance away, a clock or a timer, and a detector co-located with the source. After measuring the round trip time for the light to travel from the source, to the mirror, and back to the detector, you can calculate the round trip speed of light.

Then he talks about the impossibility of knowing how long it took for the light to traverse each half of the trip. This is the essence of the problem that SR deals with--we cannot know the one-way speed of light. But SR arbitrarily assigns the two halves to be equal, independent of the "absolute" motion of the experimental apparatus, as long as it is not accelerating. And everything else follows from this assignment. Once you grasp this concept, you'll be well on your way to mastering SR.

Thanks for the mind-opening points :)

If you want to become a physicist of any type, you have to have at least the passion it takes to stick to the material to the end everywhere and everytime you hit something related to physics! This is the first step! The second is to start from mathematics rather than going for physics without having a mathematical background as this is really vital to the understanding of physical implications! You msut know the language physics speaks to advance! Then I guess it is better to start from a book that is really able to look into the basics of relativity. There is no need to start from special relativity to get into GR but if you are used to follow the cult of traditionalist, get started by books covering both SR and GR such as Rindler, D'Inverno! Remember that your knowledge of mathematics is very crucial so do not lose the track of mathematics at all!

AB

so the key is mathematics .. should I focus on specific topics ?

Well, I only say this because the original journal paper on anything is rarely the best pedagogical source to use when teaching the subject. Einstein created SR, but there have been 100 years of brilliant educators figuring out how best to teach it!

There will be algebra if you want to study SR even at a basic quantitative level. No way around that. You can probably get by with just algebra, for a first pass.

I have heard good things about this book:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0716723271/?tag=pfamazon01-20

It's an introduction for physics students in their second year. It seems the book focuses on algebra and trigonometry. So if you can recall those topics, this may be a good first pass.

aha .. I agree that the originals are not always the best teaching material and thank you for the book recommendation ..

I like the Leonard Susskind lectures as a nice conceptual overview with the bare minimum math. I don't think you can do it with less math without turning to a pop-sci treatment which I would discourage.

I don't want that either.. these lectures seem pretty well .. might be a good start .. thank you ..

I'd suggest getting a hold of the standard textbook by Taylor & Wheeler, "Space Time Physics". You can get the first chapter of the first edition online, http://www.eftaylor.com/special.html" but if you're serious you'd eventually want to get the whole book in its later edition.

I'm personally somewhat fond of Bondi's "Relativity and Common Sense", though it's somewhat dated by now, and while adequate to get some understanding of SR, it won't provide you with the background for later advanced topics.

The original journal articles are nice for historical purposes, but probably are not the easiest way to actually learn.

thank you :)

 

[Altabeh]

so the key is mathematics .. should I focus on specific topics ?

Well it depends on how much further you want to go into this stuff! If it was 1950's, you wouldn't need that much of mathematics but now with all those new subjects coming up everyday you cannot survive without having a pervasively vast knowledge of mathematics from basic calculus and tensor analysis to variational methods and calculus on manifolds! But I suggest at the very least to get familiar with tensors and tensor calculus! You can start from A. J. McConnell, for example, and then read Schaum's outline of tensor calculus and do each and every one of its exercises carefully! After that, you are ready to be self-taught GR in its primitive stages!

AB

 

[AlephZero]

If you want to read about Einstein's thought processes in discovering relativity, read his own "beginners book" on the subject. It's available free on the web.

A Einstein: "Relativity: the special and general theory". English translation published in 1920.

It contains all the famous thought experiments, and the minimum amount of math.

 

[Dark_knight90]

what about that ?

http://rafimoor.com/english/SRE.htm#Background

 

[JesseM]

Also see the links I gave on this thread...

 

[Dark_knight90]

Also see the links I gave on this thread...

thank you

 

[Daverz]

What about starting to read his 1920 paper about special and general relativity ? or maybe the 1905 paper ?

Einstein's original paper is actually much more mathematical than you need for an introduction. I recommend N. David Mermin's It's About Time as an introduction for Special Relativity. Then work through the problems in the first edition of Taylor & Wheeler's https://www.amazon.com/dp/071670336X/?tag=pfamazon01-20. Taylor & Wheeler also wrote a book on black holes that is a good followup. After that, you should probably think about getting more background in general physics (mechanics, E&M) before moving on to a "proper" GR textbook.

 

[DiracLandau]

Of course ,either for a non-physics or a physics student Taylor and Wheeler's "Spacetime physics" is ever the best to start with. But regarding reading 1905 paper of Einstein, I agree that original papers are not good pedagogical sources to start with.One can't learn quantum mechanics from original papers! BUT ,it is totally different when it comes to Special relativity.

Einstein's 1905 original paper is an excellent source to learn special relativity due to its simplicity and great clarity of the concepts.It is a must read for beginners and also for those who have already started

 

[Rasalhague]

I'm no expert, but here are some resources I've found useful. Benjamin Crowell's online textbook http://www.lightandmatter.com/ has a nice chapter introducing relativity, At the same site, he has a book on general relativity--although I haven't got very far with that one yet. I'll add my voice to all those recommending Taylor & Wheeler: Spacetime Physics! It uses algebra, trigonometry and a little calculus in places.

Tensor analysis, which Altabeh mentioned, is a branch of linear algebra. MIT have courses of video lectures on linear algebra, single and multivariable calculus, differential equations. This series on multivariabel calculus from Berkeley is good, especially his treatment in the final few lectures of Stokes' Theorem. The Khan Academy is justly famous for its videos on mathematical (and other) subjects. They're mostly about 10 minutes long, and offer a gentle way to get started on a new subject. After struggling with several online explanations of tensors, I found these books by Ray M. Bowen and C. C. Wang refreshingly straighforward:

Introduction to Vectors and Tensors, Vol 1: Linear and Multilinear Algebra

Introduction to Vectors and Tensors, Vol 2: Vector and Tensor Analysi

To understand the terminology used by mathematical texts, it helps to read at least a little bit about abstract algebra: sets, functions, groups... I keep returning to Sean Carroll's Lecture Notes on General Relativity and using it as a guide to what math to learn next. I've also dipped into Blandford & Thorne: http://www.pma.caltech.edu/Courses/ph136/yr2008/, which treats Newtonian physics and special relativity in parallel. In the final chapters it turns to general relativity.

Gerard 't Hooft has made this syllabus of suggestions for anyone attempting to learn physics from the internet: Theoretical Physics as a Challenge.

 

[Mueiz]

If you want to become a physicist of any type, you have to have at least the passion it takes to stick to the material to the end everywhere and everytime you hit something related to physics! This is the first step! The second is to start from mathematics rather than going for physics without having a mathematical background as this is really vital to the understanding of physical implications! You msut know the language physics speaks to advance! Then I guess it is better to start from a book that is really able to look into the basics of relativity. There is no need to start from special relativity to get into GR but if you are used to follow the cult of traditionalist, get started by books covering both SR and GR such as Rindler, D'Inverno! Remember that your knowledge of mathematics is very crucial so do not lose the track of mathematics at all!

AB

This is a very good and deep recommendations .. but i disagree that no need to start from SR because SR is necessary to understand important concepts of GR such as '' space-time" ,"metric tensor" and SR also gives the motivation to GR
I think that it will be very useful to read The General Theory of Relativity by P A M Dirac in the suitable stage of your study of GR

 

[Dark_knight90]

Thank you guys for your replies ..

This is the original paper of Special relativity..
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/

I want the original paper of General relativity ? Does it exist in a similar form like the first paper ?
All I can find is
http://www.bartleby.com/173/1.html

?

 

[1MileCrash]

I HIGHLY recommend you check out "Relativity Visualized" by Lewis Epstein. It's exactly what you're looking for, I promise.

 

[jason12345]

Are you serious about being a relativist?

I struggled with Einstein's 1905 paper simply because I didn't have the background to understand it on the first reading. With hindsight, I wish I had read first:

Spacetime Physics by Edwin F. Taylor
Special Relativity (The M.I.T. Introductory Physics Series)

Einstein's 1905 paper.

Moving onto:

Relativity: Special, General, and Cosmological by Rindler.
Papers from Arxiv.org on the subject.

 

[Dark_knight90]

What do you think about : Modern physics (Serway, Moses, Moyer) 3rd edition as a textbook of MODERN PHYSICS "not only relativity"
.. what level is it ?
and does it cover most of the topics of modern physics ?
thnx