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The Elements of Relativity

David M. Wittman

June 2018

ISBN: 9780199658640

336 pages
Paperback
246x189mm

In Stock

Price: £24.95

This undergraduate textbook introduces relativity to a non-technical audience. The "thinking tools" approach allows readers to understand at a much deeper level than popular treatments, and end-of-chapter problems (always lacking in popular books) help build and cement that understanding.

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Description

This undergraduate textbook introduces relativity to a non-technical audience. The "thinking tools" approach allows readers to understand at a much deeper level than popular treatments, and end-of-chapter problems (always lacking in popular books) help build and cement that understanding.

  • Thinking tools approach develops reasoning skills while building an understanding of nature
  • Numerous end-of-chapter exercises
  • Multiple tools for building a fundamental understanding each concept
  • Connections to diverse and fascinating observations of the universe
  • Special and general relativity tightly integrated

About the Author(s)

David M. Wittman, Professor, University of California, Davis

David M. Wittman is a professor at the University of California, Davis. He has discovered millions of galaxies as co-PI of the Deep Lens Survey, which was awarded over 100 nights on 4-m telescopes to study a representative sample of the universe. But discovering millions of galaxies was just the easy part. He analyzed the galaxies' shapes to reveal subtle distortions caused by the gravitational fields of foreground masses, an effect called weak gravitational lensing. He was the first to detect cosmic shear, or weak lensing by the large-scale structure of the universe. He was also the first to detect a cluster of galaxies through its gravitational effects alone, and the first to combine source redshift information with lensing to probe structure in three dimensions (tomography).

Table of Contents

    1:A First Look at Relativity
    2:Acceleration and Force
    3:Galilean Relativity
    4:Reasoning with Frames and Spacetime Diagrams
    5:The Speed of Light
    6:Time Slow
    7:Time Dilation and Length Contraction
    8:Special Relativity: Putting it All Together
    9:Doppler Effect and Velocity Addition Law
    10:The Twin Paradox
    11:Spacetime Geometry
    12:Energy and Momentum
    13:The Equivalence Principle
    14:Gravity Reframed
    15:Potential
    16:Newtonian Gravity
    17:Orbits
    18:General Relativity and teh Schwarzschild Metric
    19:Beyond the Schwarschild Metric
    20:Black Holes

Reviews

"The Elements of Relativity is unique: Wittman writes for students who lack a detailed physics background but who still wish to learn about the nature of space-time, black holes, and astronomical phenomena like gravitational lensing. The book successfully builds the necessary physics fundamentals at a reasonable pace to allow the reader to tackle the most sophisticated concepts by the end of the book. Highly recommended." - C. Palma, CHOICE

Additional Resources

A solutions manual is available for this title. Please click here to order your copy.

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