It's About Time : : Understanding Einstein's Relativity / / N. David Mermin.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Mermin, N. David,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2009]; ©2005
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Edition: Course Book
• Language: English
• Series: Princeton Science Library ; 115
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (208 p.) :; 13 halftones. 43 line illus. 1 table.

In It's About Time, N. David Mermin asserts that relativity ought to be an important part of everyone's education--after all, it is largely about time, a subject with which all are familiar. The book reveals that some of our most intuitive notions about time are shockingly wrong, and that the real nature of time discovered by Einstein can be rigorously explained without advanced mathematics. This readable exposition of the nature of time as addressed in Einstein's theory of relativity is accessible to anyone who remembers a little high school algebra and elementary plane geometry. The book evolved as Mermin taught the subject to diverse groups of undergraduates at Cornell University, none of them science majors, over three and a half decades. Mermin's approach is imaginative, yet accurate and complete. Clear, lively, and informal, the book will appeal to intellectually curious readers of all kinds, including even professional physicists, who will be intrigued by its highly original approach.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface: Why Another Relativity Book -- Note to Readers -- One. The Principle of Relativity -- Two. Combining (Small) Velocities -- Three. The Speed of Light -- Four. Combining (Any) Velocities -- Five. Simultaneous Events; Synchronized Clocks -- Six. Moving Clocks Run Slowly; Moving Sticks Shrink -- Seven. Looking At a Moving Clock -- Eight. The Interval between Events -- Nine. Trains of Rockets -- Ten. Space-Time Geometry -- Eleven. E = Mc2 -- Twelve. A Bit about General Relativity -- Thirteen. What Makes It Happen? -- INDEX