Which book is best for self-studying special relativity?

[Moriarty]

So I'm taking AP-C: E&M for my last high school semester and wanted to take some time to read up with a rigorous special relativity book. I've already taken the equivalent of Calculus 1-3 at a university level and I've read Kleppner and Kolenkow's Mechanics book up to the chapters on Special Relativity and Relativistic Dynamics. So hit be up with your recommendations.

 

[bcrowell]

Do you have the first edition of K&K (blue), or the second (red)? Both give out-of-date presentations of SR, but the first edition's is particularly hoary.

Morin, Introduction to classical mechanics, is sort of the modern K&K, and it has a very nice treatment of SR, including an appendix that develops the Lorentz transformation from symmetry principles rather than Einstein's 1905 postulates.

If you want more depth than K&K or Morin, a possibility would be my own SR book, http://www.lightandmatter.com/sr/ , which is intended for an upper-division course.

 

[Moriarty]

Do you have the first edition of K&K (blue), or the second (red)? Both give out-of-date presentations of SR, but the first edition's is particularly hoary.

Morin, Introduction to classical mechanics, is sort of the modern K&K, and it has a very nice treatment of SR, including an appendix that develops the Lorentz transformation from symmetry principles rather than Einstein's 1905 postulates.

If you want more depth than K&K or Morin, a possibility would be my own SR book, http://www.lightandmatter.com/sr/ , which is intended for an upper-division course.

Ha, wasn't expecting to get someone who's actually written a book. I'll check out your stuff.

I own the 2013 version of K&K btw.

 

[Fredrik]

There are lots of threads like this, so you should check out a few of them. My standard recommendation is that you start with chapters 1-2 of "A first course in general relativity" by Schutz. Another book that gets a lot of recommendations is "Spacetime physics" by Taylor & Wheeler. The most comprehensive introduction in a modern style is "Special Relativity in general frames" by Gourgoulhon.

I'm embarrassed to say that I still haven't checked out bcrowell's book, but I know that his forum posts are good, so I don't doubt that the book is good too.

 

[Moriarty]

There are lots of threads like this, so you should check out a few of them.

I figured, but I'm on my tablet and the App isn't being responsive when I search. Figured one more thread to add to the mix wouldn't hurt.