No comments about Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions.

5 comments about Exploring Black Holes: Introduction to General Relativity.

1. This book sidesteps the hard work needed to motivate and develop the Einstein field equations, and goes directly to one of the most important solutions of the equations, the Schwarzschild solution, which gives rise to the concept of a black hole. By exploring what observers in different parts of space-time would experience along their different trajectories (whether falling into a black hole or watching from a safe spot far away), Taylor and Wheeler manage to convey an intuitive understanding for such typical GR "paradoxes" such as the fact that the same "event" (the crossing over of an object through the event horizon) can be seen to take 15 minutes, or forever, depending on who's watching it.
   
   Because of what it omits, this book is not a complete presentation of GR. It does present the most fun part of GR, however, in a way that is mathematically accessible.
   
   Along the way, a few side questions are adddressed, like "How painful would it be to be squished/torn apart as I fall into a black hole?" A lot of time is also spent explaining how the weird trajectories of light within the event horizon will transmogrify what is seen by the observer.
   
   This is a great book and a lot of fun. I am also left with a greater motivation to go back to a more complete presentation, to be convinced that "this is where you have to end up". Although much longer, this book is a worthy successor to the original output of this dynamic duo, "Spacetime Physics".



2. This book was delivered in immaculate condition and is exactly how I was hoping it would be. Thank you for your product and i hope to do business with you again!
   
   Sincerely,
   
   Travis



3. Einstein's general theory of relativity is perhaps one of the most mathematically intense areas of research any physicist or astronomer could undertake. However this book takes the subject and turns it into a joyous romp through curved spacetime.
   
   By avoiding the field equations and focusing on their solutions the authors impart to the eager student an overview of general relativity and set the stage for a more rigorous approach to be undertaken later. This book is the perfect introduction to the subject.
   
   The book is well suited for advanced undergraduates who have had several hours of physics and mathematics. It is likewise suited to serve as a introductory text for graduate students that are studying astrophysics and astronomy. In the latter case the text serves well as an overview of what general relativity is, many of its findings, its predictions, and its relevance to observational astronomy.
   
   If you have a basic understanding of calculus and have studied the special theory of relativity in some detail then this book is well suited to your needs.



4. This is the best book about General relativity ( GR ) that I have ever read. Instead of trying to explain GR with words the author is using mathematics to to illustrate some of the consequences of GR. This means that some mathematical knowledge is required ( but not knowledge about tensors and dfferential forms ) and that the reader need to spend some time with paper and pencil to truly understand the text. The examples is concentrated on what is happening around black holes but the advance of Mercury's perihelion and the slowing of light around the Sun is also described. A very good book!



5. A book I really wouldn't have thought could have been written. There are a lot of books on general relativity at the superficial level, call these books 'mathless.' There are monumental tomes aimed at the graduate student level, call these books 'tensor calculus.' Here is a book exquisitely positioned between these others. The student will need to have had differential calculus, and perhaps a bit of basic physics, and with these he will get a pretty good, introductory understanding of General Relativity.
   
   The real key to this book is that it explains a lot, but then it open up a bunch of other questions, questions that we really haven't answered yet -- things like dark matter, dark energy, accelerating expansion of the universe, and more.
   
   The book ends with: 'How can physics live up to its true greatness except by a new revolution in outlook which dwarfs all past revolutions? And when it comes, will we not say to each other, Oh, how beautiful and simple it all is! How could we ever have missed it so long.'
   
   That's just the awe, the vision, that we want new and budding physicists to have.

5 comments about General Relativity.

1. I used this text for a course after taking an undergraduate GR course based on Shutz. I found Shutz to be a much clearer and pedagogical text, and don't think I would have learned GR as easily if I had started with Wald. I think one requires greater mathematical preparation than I possess to fully appreciate the discussions involving topology in the second chapter and appendix. Oddly, however, this text becomes clearer as the reader advances through it: later chapters were more straightforward and still concise.



2. For about twenty years this book has more or less been a standard text that almost anyone seeking a deep understanding of general relativity should master. There is a good reason for that, it's a great book.
   
   The first half of the book covers the basics of general relativity. The approach is very geometrical, this is essential for a deep understanding of general relativity and to understand almost any of the literature. However, there is a practical issue with a geometric approach, the notation used in some books is such that it's very difficult for a reader to write the equations down on a piece of paper. For example, how can someone write an equation and make the symbols bold? Abstract index notation is used throughout this book. I think that is a great choice allowing one to write the equations using paper and a pen, but without sacrificing anything from the geometrical perspective.
   
   The book opens with a short chapter on special relativity, obviously it's not a very comprehensive treatment, but rather it's intended to establish notation and a point of view. After this there is a two chapter introduction to differential geometry. This material is needed for even the most basic concepts of general relativity. Some of the more advanced concepts of general relativity, e.g. causal structure, require knowledge of topology. Topology is treated in one of the very useful appendices. Wald's treatment of differential geometry and topology is excellent if you already have a fairly good grasp of these subjects, perhaps not so much if it's the first time you've seen them. I'd suggest readers uninitiated in these topics read a more basic introduction while, or before, reading this book.
   
   The rest of the first part consists of developing Einstein's equation, some cosmological solutions and the Schwarzschild solution. These topics are covered in virtually all general relativity books, however the treatment here is especially superb.
   
   The second part of the book consists of the advanced topics, as much as I liked the first part in my opinion it's the second part of the book that really makes Wald's book stand out. In brief the contents are: more systematic methods used for solving Einstein's equation (these are mostly centered on using symmetry), causal structure of space-time (an essential topic for many aspects of general relativity), the initial value problem, asymptotic flatness, black holes, spinors and quantum effects.
   
   These are all very well done, up to the standard established in the first part of the book. I especially appreciated the chapters on asymptotic flatness and spinors since these topics seem to be included in text books less frequently than the others. The quantum effects chapter also stood out. It covered a wide range of interesting topics (although some of them only briefly): semiclassical gravity, general issues in quantum gravity, non-renormalizability of the covariant perturbative approach, twistors (!), quantum field theory in curved space-time and of course black hole thermodynamics.
   
   Does it have any weaknesses? One could argue that it would be nice to see more material on experimental confirmation of general relativity. However, I thought the amount of material on this was fine. It might not be the ideal first book on general relativity, without an exceptional instructor many students seeing the subject for the first time might find the pace a little fast.
   
   To summarize, I think this is a great book, it's my favorite book on gravity. I consider it virtually required reading for an advanced understanding of general relativity. However, I would suggest supplementary texts be used for differential geometry and topology.



3. The book starts out well and then quickly becomes a refresher in topology! Not a great first text on general relativity if your higher math is shakey but as it progresses it becomes easier to read. Stable, concise, an exceptional work full of wonderful graphs, equations, and description.
   
   Not for the beginner or the merely curious, this is a book for the serious student pursuing relativity in context of astrophysics, cosmology, or some similar discipline.



4. Wald's book stands out as the clearest presentation of general relativity yet produced. The downside is that the conciseness often makes it inaccessible to the beginner. If you try to learn from this book, you *need to do exercises* (from this book or another). It is too hard to follow if you don't have the experience of computations under your belt. But once you do get to the point where you follow Wald, you will follow him easily and pleasurably, as he writes with effortless clarity.
   
   A common myth is that this book is overly mathematical. On the contrary--some of the highlights are where Wald discusses the role of Mach's principle in Einstein's formulation of the theory, and the role of our "philosophical projudices" in our choice of cosmology. Wald's talent is the ability to state the interesting physical or philosophical stuff without having to ramble on like other authors.



5. Wald's book was the standard text for two graduate courses in GR that I took during my PhD (one was an introductory grad course on GR and the other was an advance special topics course on black holes). The first six chapters lay the groundwork for classical GR, starting with a quick recap of the tensor notation (Wald's Index free notation is very useful), a little bit of differential geometry and the Einstien's equations. The Initial value problem of GR is treated in an elegant chapter that concludes the introduction. Advanced topics like black holes, area theorems, singularity theorems etc are treated in latter chapters, along with a nice chapter on QFT in curved space-time and the Hawking effect. I found Wald's book most useful for understanding the singularity theorems, which have been discussed very lucidly without sacrificing much rigor (some of the more technical details are best left to Hawking and Ellis).
   
   There is a priceless discussion on Penrose diagrams, asymptotic infinity, ADM energy and the BMS group which to my knowledge have never appeared in another book (one has to go back to papers of Ashtekar and Penrose to find this information).
   
   I had no prior exposure to differential geometry when I started reading the book (indeed my background at this point was an undergrad degree in Electronics, so my knowledge of physics when I took this course was rudimentary to say the least). I however found no difficulty in following this book, and indeed this book was the most exciting grad level book that I read until Polchinski's two tomes on String Theory. I would recommend Wald's book for anyone who likes to understand General Relativity and especially Black Hole Thermodynamics...and last but not least, the exercises in the book are all interesting and in some cases are pretty nontrivial. I learnt a lot of GR working out these exercises and highly recommend them to anybody studying this book...it is definitely worth spending time on these exercises.

5 comments about Einstein For Dummies (For Dummies (Math & Science)).

1. It is the best of the many books that I have read that present Einstein's work in a simplified fashion. The personal data about Einstein is interesting also.



2. I found Einstein for Dummies to be interesting and informative. It was an enjoyable read, and quickly got me up to speed on Albert Einstein and his extraordinary life's work. At $13, it is priced right, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is curious about Einstein.



3. This is the book to read if you want to understand relativity but don't know mathematics. As a biologist, I read 6 chapters in one night. Dr. Calle's analogy made use of my commonsense and everyday experience to the best. From the history and philosophy of physics described in the book, I figured out what theoretical physics is and how physicists do it. I still have questions not answered by the book, but I finished the book and want another one by the same author.
   
   I wish all the science professors have Dr. Calle's communication skills and interest in teaching.



4. Helps to stretch this old brain of mine when I thought that I was all through with learning.



5. An excellent book which clearly describes not only Einstein's contributions to physics, but the contributions of many other physicists who went before him like Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Maxwell, and Lorentz and who were his contemporaries like Planck and Bohr. In highlighting Einstein's contributions, he covers a wide range of topics including dynamics, electromagnetism, atomic physics, and quantum mechanics. For a more detailed description of physical concepts covering a broader range, I highly recommended his book on superstrings, etc.

5 comments about Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time (Great Discoveries).

1. The author loves Einstien. Good simplification of Einstiens' work. I gave this a 4 star because I understand more about einsteins theories now than before I read it.
   
   I have gained even more respect for Einstein. From the book, I am impressed that he seems like a real down to earth decent person. He also suffered from many trials and tribulations (like hating school and almost not passing entrance exams, etc.).



2. In this small book Prof. Kaku has created a marvelously entertaining and easy-to-read biography of the scientist whose very name has, somewhat illogically, become synonymous with any and all flavors of genius. As a physicist himself, Kaku enriches the narrative with lucid explanations and personal scientific judgments. He consistently shows a sure hand for striking a nice balance between the extremes of expecting too much, or too little, from the general reader.
   
   The author describes vividly the many fascinating aspects of Einstein's life, including a brief obsession with religion at 11, an uneasy relationship with conventional education, difficulty finding a job, a stint as a patent examiner combined with startlingly original contributions to physics, escape to America from an increasingly Nazified Germany, the triumph of General Relativity, and finally life as a scientific elder statesman at Princeton, doggedly chasing the elusive unified field theory and insisting to the end that the intrinsically probabilistic quantum theory he helped establish could not represent ultimate reality.
   
   Woven into the narrative by Kaku the biographer are many valuable insights from Kaku the physicist. For instance, he counters the popular misconception that relativity brought classical physics crashing down, and that Newton's equations were suddenly revealed as useless or wrong. Relativity did perform the astonishing feat of reducing classical dynamics to a special case, but it is an exceedingly important case which is still used daily by engineers and scientists around the world. In the author's words (p. 65), "...for everyday velocities, Newton's laws are perfectly fine." Kaku contrasts Einstein's accomplishments with today's physics in some interesting ways, including a remark on page 224 proposing that the encyclopedic Standard Model of quantum particle behavior is, despite its predictive success, "...perhaps one of the ugliest theories ever proposed in science." So much for the notion that truth and beauty always go hand in hand.
   
   The author provides an edifying resolution of the famous "twin paradox" by emphasizing that although the relative velocity histories of the moving and stationary twins must be symmetrical and indistiguishable, their histories as recorded by separate accelerometers attached to each twin would be very different. The traveling twin encounters the time stretching effect of large velocity changes with respect to inertial space, hence returns younger than her stay-at-home sibling. The key is to recognize that the required accelerations move the problem out of the limited realm of special relativity.
   
   The book's story line skillfully blends Einstein's professional life with illuminating vignettes of his nonscientific side. For instance, he was not an unqualified pacifist and supported the use of force when challenged by an enemy, such as the German/Japanese alliance in World War II, which pursued destruction of life as an end in itself. Occasionally Einstein could appear shockingly naive, as when he suggested locating the Jewish state in a country such as Peru to avoid replaying the "promised land" conflicts described so vividly in the Old Testament. Odd as it seems, this proposal was consistent with Einstein's way of looking at things, which supported some aspects of Zionism but simply could not countenance any claim to supernatural land grants.
   
   I found only two drawbacks: First, the absence of illustrations was a letdown, especially since Einstein was known for thinking in pictures. Second, lack of an index is frustrating in any non-fiction book, and especially in one as good as this.



3. Physicists will already be acquainted with nearly everything in this book. For the rest of us, Professor Kaku provides a comfortably woven account of Einstein's personal and professional life. While nearly everyone is familiar with the famous scientist's reputation, few know much about him as a man or his incredible body of work. Einstien's humanity and self-deprecating humor only add to his charm. Surprising to me was his dogged, single-minded pursuit of the solution to relativity. His determination nearly ruined his health and his relationship to his family.
   
   This is a wonderful book for the general reader. No special knowledge of science or physics is needed to thoroughly enjoy it. Highly recommended.



4. The professor, Michio Kaku, has easily become one of my favorite authors. That Einstein was the greatest scientist of the past century there's no doubt. And the author in addition to being a physicist is able to explain, in a warm, and caring way, how Einstein pictured, in his mind, what eventually became his theory of special relativity. But there's more; Prof. Kaku provides us a glimpse of the life, thoughts, frustrations, and accomplishments of Einstein the man as well. An easy, and interesting read for sure.



5. Just finished the book Einstein's Cosmos, which is a great look into the life of the genius physicist Albert Einstein.
   
   The book has lots of interesting facts about Einstein. Some that i remember: He was born in Germany but he had such a bad experience in his youth, he renounced his citizenship when he was 17
   
   He was always brilliant. There's a myth that he wasn't that smart when he was young. Wrong. He read a Geometry book when he was 12 and LOVED it. Since then he devoured any physics and mathematics he could get his hand on. He hated classes where they wouldn't teach the "interesting topics of the day" and frequently got poor grades. But he was always smart.
   
   One little tidbit i loved hearing about is that he was a total ladies man. In High School ALL the girls wanted to talk to him b/c he had such a funny personality. He was a witty guy - always cracking jokes and having fun. Bottom line: Albert was a stud and had his pick of chicks when he was in college.
   
   Another little interesting piece of gossip - he got his main college girlfriend pregnant but she had moved away and the baby died when it was 3. He eventually had another child with her and paid alimony with his Nobel Prize money. But, as he because more famous and busier, they drifted apart and he moved to Germany, she stayed in Switzerland - leading to eventual divorce. He then became very close to his cousin Elsa, who he later married. From the book it seems that they were a great couple - He the absent-minded disheveled thinker and she the pretty put-together socialite. His tours around the world would have been impossible without her.
   
   The book follows his behavior during the wars, his refusal to support Germany during WWI and his endangerment as a prominent Jew - eventually moving to the states and living at Princeton.
   
   The physics is all easy to understand language. All the cosmic questions that stem from relativity - including the puzzling worm-hole questions are all lined up. I found it a great to read before bedtime book due to the mind benders.
   
   If you're looking to know more about Albert - this is definitely a quick and interesting book.

No comments about Particle or Wave: The Evolution of the Concept of Matter in Modern Physics (History of Science Physics).

4 comments about Introduction to Tensor Calculus, Relativity and Cosmology.

1. There are many books on General Relativity but the reader has to be careful to pick the right one so as not to waste his (or rarely her) time and money! Lawden's book belongs to the class of technical introductions - it requires you to have an undergraduate background in physics and mathematics. The author is primarily a teacher and he has taken care to make the material as easy to understand as possible. On the other hand, this book will not enable you to go directly to the research literature. A great plus of the book is the very reasonable price. I have had the infuriating experience of paying more than $100 for a highly praised textbook only to find it unreadable. The mathematical formalism Lawden employs (tensor calculus based on covariant and contravariant tensors) is now considered old fashioned but it is still the easiest for a beginner in my opinion. Once you have finished this book, I recommend that you read Synge and Schild's "Tensor Calculus" for more depth in the mathematics and also "The Principle of Relativity" (a collection of original papers by Einstein and others) to get a feeling for the history of the subject. Both of these are also Dover paperbacks and very cheap. Then if you want a more modern approach, I recommend Schutz's "A First Course in General Relativity" which is still reasonably priced and will bring you closer to the level of contemporary research. Schutz uses a formalism of tensor calculus which aligns it with differential geometry and is now used in advanced textbooks.



2. This book is very good for those seeking an introduction to Tensor Calculus, Relativity and Cosmology. Nothing more than a basic and fundamental know-how of physics is required, atleast for the first few chapters. If you're comfortable with the simple basics of linear algebra, classical mechanics, electromagnetics and calculus, you should have no problem with this book.
   
   The book starts out with a basic review of classical physics and very quickly progresses to the Lorentz Transformation, and then to Cartesian Tensors and Special Relativity. Lawden handles the flow quite well, and covers the basic Special Relativity mechanics & electrodynamics as well as general Tensor Calculus & Riemann Spaces. Finally, he proceeds to discuss the General Theory of Relativity with a strong focus on Black Holes & Gravitational waves and analyzes elements of Cosmology in the light of the General Theory of Relativity.
   
   However, I would not recommend this book in and of itself for learning Tensor Calculus. Unfortunately, Lawden does not have any relevant references to Quantum Mechanics, either, which would have proven to be immensely useful to the novice reader. You'd also do well to brush up on your physics fundamentals before jumping head-on.
   
   This book primarily acts as a very basic introduction to those that are not familiar with some aspects of elementary modern physics such as Tensor Calculus and Relativity, and does an extremely good job of that.
   
   Personally, I'd highly recommend this book if you're looking to read up on Relativity & related areas.



3. I'm really impressed with the clarity of the material.
   I've worked through 21 problems in chapter 2, and the answers to the exercies do not have a single mistake in them yet.
   
   The publisher will also email you a .pdf file of all of the chapter problems worked out in detail. I've found the solutions to the problems to be a good supplement to the text itself.
   
   I would buy other titles from this author and publisher.



4. I have bought a bunch of books on Tensors, and in this one you actually get to do calculations, its the only one I have found of this sort. I am in the process of reading this book, but so far its a five star. I also looked up Lawden on the Internet and he was involved in a lot of early space research and was sought after by alot of companies, a must book for anyone serious in research. One last note, you need to get the answers for the questions to see techniques of his style.

5 comments about The Principle of Relativity (Dover Books on Physics).

1. Reading the original papers would be best, but if you don't read German then the Dover collection is the next best thing. In the paper on special relativity, the Lorentz transformations are derived via formulating and solving a first order pde, a treatment that no textbook presents (first order pdes aren't taught in math physics, in spite of the fact that every set of first order autonomous odes generates a first order pde). It took my teaching the subject to advanced undergrads in later years to realize what many others have by now noticed, namely, you don't need two postulates for special relativity. "Galilean invariance" is enough. The constancy of the speed of light follows from the requirement that there is no special reference frame.

   Einstein's presentation of GR is unsurpassed for conciseness and clarity, is a model for other researchers to follow when writing papers. Here, he introduces the famous misconception (corrected today in the better texts like Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler) that general covariance is a physical principle. Well, even the greatest minds make mistakes.

   Feynman wrote well, but no scientist to date has written better than Einstein.




2. One of the truly amazing things about the Special Theory is that you only need a decent grasp of high school mathematics and science to fully understand the two original papers. (Depending on your high school you may need to brush up on partial derivatives, but that's all.)
   
   The General Theory is something else again, but by reading around the equations and accepting the descriptions of what is being solved you can still gain some incredible insights into a great intellectual achievement.



3. Dover must be commended for re-printing this collection of 'seminal' papers which cover the development of Relativity. This collection includes Lorentz's papers "Michelson's Interference Experiment" & "Electromagnetic Phenomena ..." and Minkowski's "Space and Time". The latter was instrumental in forging the notion of Minkowski 'space' - and forever altered our conception of how we view time vis-a-vis space. Additional notes by Sommerfield are present as an appendix to Minkowski's paper.
   
   All this is in addition to the famous papers by Einstein which gave birth to Special & General Relativity. In particular, "The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity" is, of course, a classic - but a tough read. The paper on Special Relativity, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", on the other hand, is easily accesible to anyone acquainted with high school mathematics.
   
   Even for the non-physicist, with a suitable grounding in the requisite mathematics, this book is a real gem. In general, it serves an excellent companion to Einstein's The Meaning of Relativity, Fifth Edition: Including the Relativistic Theory of the Non-Symmetric Field (Princeton Science Library) and makes for a priceless addition to a personal library.



4. This book presents Einstein's orginal papers on relativity along with many other "classics" on the subject. A good understanding of college math and physics is a must.



5. I'm not happy with this book at all. I'm not a scientist outside of the field of information technology and I want something to explain Einstein's theories that I could read. I read such a book when I was young. It's out of print, but you can purchase it on Amazon used. It's entitled "Relativity: The Special and the General Theory--A Clear Explanation that Anyone Can Understand" by Albert Einstein.
   
   That did it for me, this book put me to sleep.

5 comments about Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality.

1. "The moving finger writes and having writ moves on, nor all your piety can lure it back nor your tears wash out a word of it." Jon Donne.
   
   If Prof. Ron Mallett has his way, the words of Jon Donne will be a quaint aphorism that people used to say. The reason Mallett says this is because he believes that the time barrier can be broken and that -- someday -- people will have the technology to travel into the past.
   
   Almost immediately on announcing his speculations, Mallett became the topic of intense media interest including a Learning Channel special and great media coverage. And this is rightly so because the back story of Mallett's motivation -- so ably told in this book -- is itself so compelling.
   
   In 1955, while still a child, Ron Mallett lost his father who died of heart failure at the age of 33. Loving his Dad as intensely as he did, Mallett began to dream of breaking the time barrier to rejoin his father just to tell him "I love you."
   
   Just as everyone can easily connect with Mallett's motivation, mostly everyone will find themselves somewhat befuddled by the science behind Mallett's speculations. This isn't because he doesn't do a good job of explaining himself, but rather simply because scientific explanations typically tend to tax comprehension.
   
   That being said, his theory is an ingenious one: that just as gravity can used to distort time, so can concentrated light. In this way, Mallett must now consider it the sweetest serendipity that he worked in the private sector with lasers for a formative part of his early career. In this way, he became immediately acquianted with the very device he intends to employ in his time travel device.
   
   The typical time travel scenerios that have been set out involve a radical twisting of space. If we were bugs living on a sheet of Christmas wrapping paper, our travel from one end of the sheet to the other would be greatly speeded if we could somehow get the paper from the ends to connect with each other. And indeed, this is what the tradition theories of time travel all propose: that somehow -- whether it's through cosmic strings as speculated by J Richard Gott or black holes as speculated by Kip Thorne -- a force so great is created that space is litterally forced to warp back on itself.
   
   Unfortunately, at the end of the day, Mallett's theories will probably face the same fate at those of Gott and Thorne respecting time travel by people into the past...failure. However, having opened by quoting Donne, it's perhaps best to close by quoting Theodore Roosevelt who said:
   
   "Pity not those who have failed but those who live in that grey twilight that knows neither success nor failure."
   
   By dint of genius, Mallett -- ultimately successful or not -- has irrevocably taken himself out of that "grey twilight" and us with him...if only in our hearts and imaginations.



2. I enjoyed the auto-biography and the quantom physics lessons along the way. I wish more was said about the more recent events concerning the time travel experiments. I felt hungry for more information on the whole subject and was left wanting more.
   
   This was an easy read and I enjoyed reading non-the-less...



3. I heard Dr. Mallett on NPR and ordered the book right away. While some aspects of this book are less than satisfying (Dr. Mallett alternates between hubris and humility in an odd fashion at times....), the emotional quest that set the author on the path of theoretical physics cannot be anything other than deeply affecting. While his personal accounts were sometimes just not quite authentic or unfeigned to me (hey, he's not perfect!), what truly shines in this book is Dr. Mallett's love of science, of math, and his gift for explaining some of the very complex aspects of relativity theory. In this respect, I heartily recommend the book and would hope that he would write further for the general public on the subject. As a PhD chemist myself, I am very appreciative of the gift of teaching with which he is endowed, a rarity among great researchers. His explanations to a general science audience are almost as powerful as those of Feynman. Dr. Mallett's commitment to his lifelong work, his dogged pursuit of any and all tools (mathematical and instrumental) to achieve that goal stand as a shining example. His story should be required reading for minority youth interested in the sciences, engineering, or just seemingly forging ahead in academia. Any flaws in the book are dwarfed by his true artistry in theoretical physics.



4. My son is thoroughly enjoying this book -- he loves learning about astronomy and time travel!



5. Spike Lee has acquired the film rights to this story (spring 2008). "Lee, who will co-write the script for the film and direct it, says he is 'elated to have acquired the rights to a fantastic story on many levels, but also a father-and-son saga of loss and love.'" (University of Connecticut Advance, June 23, 2008)

4 comments about Relativity: The Special and the General Theory, The Masterpiece Science Edition,.

1. Is is an awesome thing to be able to read in Einstein's own words his explanation of these ground breaking concepts. It is not an easy read however. His language is elaborate and eloquent, but to a person like me who is trying very hard to make mental images of the concepts, distracting. I read other sources to attempt to clarify my understanding and found sources on the internet to support the book. The expanations in the appendices did not help either; they were not quite at layman's level as well.
   
   Still, it was exciting to read and have a view into the thoughts of the great man.



2. It very difficult to critisize the man himself, but after all he was not a writer per se and was used to discussing relativity with other physicists. I can follow him. But thats only because I have read other books which make the subject much easier. Acually this was my first book on relativity which I bought years ago and threw it down in frustration. Then, recently I tried again with "Relativity Visualized" by L C Epstein. Now, finnaly I get it. It took a lot of intense concentration and re-reading, but I got it. And when it hit me my jaw dropped and all I could say was "WOW!" Of course, I lost it the next day and had to go thru it again. That's how difficult relativity is to comprehend and RETAIN. (Retaining it for more than a few minutes can seem as hard as learning it. Special Relativity is very evasive to the mind. And General Relativity is about ten times more difficult. But WHEN YOU GET IT, it's a feeling you never had before. It will change your life.)So I recommend the Epstein book. Lots of great "Thought Experiments" and a bit of neat "unique" (odd) humor, too. Einstein's book should be read, tho. After you've read other books about relativity and understand it at least "generaly" (pardon The Pun)If only to get a sense of the man. I read German quite well and still, I am sure I'd have problems reading the original, but someday I'll give it a shot.



3. This paperback book is an attractive typesetting of einstein's original classic. However, we remind the buyer this paperback does not include the contributions of other authors in the hardback edition. Thus, the description and the search inside feature are somewhat misleading.



4. So poorly edited (I is intended generally to be 1 in many equations) that the reader is distracted by typos. Not for the faint of heart.