Relativity : The Special and the General Theory

Media:	Paperback
Author:	Albert Einstein
Publisher:	Three Rivers Press
Release date:	06 June, 1995
Our price:	$8.95

Relativity : The Special and the General Theory

Average rating: Stars

A Good Compilation of early 20th century Physics

This is a good book, but most are under the impression that Einstein actually CREATED the content of the book.

Einstein actually compiled the physics theories of the latest German and Italian physicists and wrote it as his entire theory.

For instance, e=mc^2 was not created by Einstein, as so many people people. An Italian physicist came up with it. If you don't believe me check any encyclopedia.

Einstein suceeded in taking everyone's work and compiling it. This was helpful to the world of physics.

Unfortunately, this stuff is outdated, and Autodynamics has disproven many things that Einstein says in this book. When it came out it was already outdated. This was published in the 60s. Autodynamics disproved what is in this book in the 40s (45 I believe). If this was published in the 20s or even the 30s, it would have been a good book.

Relativity : The Special and the General Theory - Albert Einstein

historically good, but not the best introduction available

This appears to have been written by Einstein sometime around 1916 in German. The writing process is not made clear in the book itself (whether it was dictated or co-authored, and the extent of changes by editors or translators). New editions could stand to have a forward that provides a little more context.

There are better books around for a beginner to understand relativity, but this is certainly not the worst. There is always something to be said for reading primary sources, and the book is fairly short and can be read quickly. Students may want to stick to Part I (Special Relativity) and consult more contemporary books for General Relativity.

The language is understandable for the most part. It is not as clean and simple a writing style as is common today -- in some places it is fairly elegant but in a few it is pointlessly baroque and awkward (perhaps a problem in the translation from German). Chapter 8 is an especially bad example: it could easily be written more clearly with about half the verbiage. In the older editions the translation is credited to Robert Lawson (apparently British) but this credit disappears in other versions.

For people already familiar with the history of science, there are a lot of interesting little details, such as seeing how Einstein originally presents the description of the moving train, and seeing all the people that Einstein credits as having made an important impression on him and contributions to the theory and experiments. (I find guys like Stephen Wolfram interesting as well, but it sure is a refreshing contrast to read the modesty of someone like Einstein and all the people he generously and conscientiously credits.)

Albert Einstein - Relativity : The Special and the General Theory

Required Reading

This book provides and introduction to both Special and General Relativity without excessive use of math. While the reader does need a good collage level math background to get the most out of this book, the book does not focus on the math. The book has three parts:
1) In the first section using logical arguments Einstein takes the reader from Newtonian mechanics to Special Relativity.
2) In the second section Einstein takes the reader to the next step: General Relativity. I don't think this section went into enough dept.
3)The last section explores the greater impact of Relativity on our understanding of the universe.
4) There are a set of appendices that provide interesting details.
In my opinion this book is great start for someone who wants to get a basic understanding of Relativity. However the material is not at all complete or rigorous. Therefore anyone with serious interest in this topic should first read this, then proceed to more in-depth material. Many advanced texts are available however the reader must first obtain the proper math background.
On the whole this is a great book. I would have rated it 4 had it been written by a lesser man, nevertheless out of respect for this great man it deserves 5 stars.
Highly recommended.

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