Relativity and Common Sense: A New Approach to Einstein by Hermann Bondi (PDF)

Description

This radically reoriented and popular presentation of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity derives its concepts from Newtonian ideas rather than by opposing them. Sir Hermann Bondi explains the concepts of force, momentum, rotation, sound, and light and their relation to velocity. He then demonstrates that time is relative rather than absolute, that high speeds affect the nature of time, and that acceleration affects speed, time, and mass. Very little mathematics is required, and 60 illustrations augment the text.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: About the Author Mathematician and cosmologist Sir Hermann Bondi (1919–2005) is best known for developing the steady state theory of the universe with Fred Hoyle and Thomas Gold as an alternative to the Big Bang theory. His most lasting legacy, however, will probably be his important contributions to the theory of general relativity.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This is one of the first books which use common sense approach to the understanding of special theory of relativity using illustrations, drawings and diagrams. At one time this theory was considered mysterious, which is in fact obvious and clear-cut extension of ordinary ideas to the realm of high velocities. The author first presents Newtonian ideas followed by the concept and characteristic effects of special relativity in a non mathematical language. Then he introduces Lorentz Transformation (LT) in chapter 10, which involves systems of coordinates moving relative to each other and then uses LT to establish the basics of the theory. Readers with very limited mathematical background should have no trouble in understanding the elementary aspects of the relativity. This is a cute little book (177 pages, size 7.92” x 5.36″), which is classified into three parts. The first part introduces the classical mechanics; concepts of force, momentum, angular momentum, velocity of light and uniqueness of light. The second part deals with the peculiarities of high speeds, relationship of inertial (uniformly moving, constant velocity) and moving observers and the need for theory of relativity to understand high speed situation and a brief introduction to Lorentz Transformation. The final part discusses the consequences of traveling faster than light, acceleration (non-inertial motion) and high velocities on mass. Chapters 8 and 9 are crucial to the common sense approach to the understanding of relativity. The reader may need time and patience to read these two chapters to understand relativity. Chapter 11 discusses some interesting consequences of special relativity; for travels faster than light there is no link between cause and effect, in other words that effect could precede cause. This book is very affordable and useful; I encourage the reader to consider adding this book to his/her personal library.

⭐This is an old book that I bought used. I’m not that impressed with its contents. It is difficult to read.

⭐I recently decided to review Special Relativity and purchased all the elementary books I could afford on Amazon. I was intrigued by the “k calculus” so I bought Bondi’s book. It is really an excellent book for an introduction, for someone who knows nothing about relativity. It argues everything from the first principles. I’m not sure I agree with the author that the postulates of Special Relativity are obvious, and the Michelson-Morley experiment seems almost unnecessary in retrospect. However, I’m not as smart as the author, so maybe he’s right. Other than that one quibble, he explains everything from first principles, and even for someone who knows Special Relativity well, there are many historical gems IMHO.As for the “k calculus” that Professor Bondi invented to teach the subject, I found it very enjoyable. When I was in elementary school in the 1960’s, we saw some really amazing science films produced by Bell Labs. In one of them, the scientist teacher explained time dilation by showing a clock made from a bouncing photon. It was easy enough for a child to understand 🙂 I realize looking back on it that he was using the same idea as the k calculus, but without any calculations.I think this book is a great introduction from first principles, and as much as possible from “common sense”. However, even though the k calculus allows you to do primitive calculations, if you want to do more serious calculations, you need to read a more standard introduction to Special Relativity after this one. Even Einstein eventually admitted that working with Minkowski space was the way to go, although (I am told) he considered it an unnecessary formalism when it was first used. Personally, I think it is better to understand all the calculations component-wise thoroughly before moving on to the elegant formalism of four-vectors.I read this book in a half a day. After glancing through it for this review, I think I will probably reread it a few times for the historical background.

⭐They failed at their only job. Multiple copies of this product contained pages in which the text was cut off, deeming the page unreadable. I HIGHLY recommended not purchasing this product. It is a waste of time and money.

⭐Don’t buy printing is terrible, returned this. Luckily I looked at the pages before giving it to the person I bought it as a present for.

⭐This is a first class introduction to the special theory of relativity. It should be regarded as an essential text for anyone interested in relativity at any level.On the one hand it should be accessible to everyone competent in algebra at GCSE, and on the other it clearly explains the physical principles underlying the theory. An understanding of physical principles is often lacking in more advanced accounts, and I maintain that if you don’t know how to derive the Lorentz transform from the k-calculus then you may be able to use relativity, but you almost certainly don’t truly understand it.

⭐Previous reviewers who rated this book less than four stars have simply misunderstood the purpose of this book. It uses a novel approach to present the special theory of relativity to an audience of non-physicists who are not afraid of a few – very few – equations, as in the proverbial “educated high school graduate.” Hence Bondi uses numerical examples to avoid many equations. The book is not meant to be a college textbook or complete treatise on relativity!Bondi’s approach makes relativity seem almost obvious. The earlier chapters, which some felt were irrelevant, are designed to contrast sound with light, which may be more familiar, or at least less surprising. There is a lot of physics in this bookSome may be misled by a statement in John Durston’s preface: “Professor Bondi derives Relativity from Newtonian ideas.” One cannot derive relativity from Newtonian mechanics. But Newtonian concepts can be used to advantage.My only caveat is that there are several unfortunate typos, especially Eq. (20) on page 123.

⭐This book is useless and I cannot return it. I am so disappointed.

⭐Dummies guide, well explained and still relevant

⭐My mixed comment on Bondi’s Book is based on the following points :1. Historically : Bondi seemingly has never heard of Galileo regarding the principle of relativity, which he wrongly attributes to Newton… Similarly, he timidly cites Lorentz, just once, and never Poincaré, when in fact the Lorentz transformations are Poincaré’s — Poincaré elegantly named them “Lorentz” to recognize Lorentz’s work– an elegance that Einstein never showed regarding the precedence of Poincaré… And today we know that Poincaré’s works were abundantly read and studied by Einstein in the Olympia Academy !!!2. His method, based on the K ratio, although not the standard treatment, has in fact been used by David Bohm (The Special Theory of Relativity) but in the right way, i.e. after exposing the standard way : e.g. Bondi never mentions Lambda, let alone extracts it from his K-calculus and even less gives the relation between K and Lambda…3. Apart from chapter XIII on mass, which is a real mess, Bondi’s treatment of the basic concepts is indeed full of common sense, but again is more oriented towards readers who have already been exposed to classical treatments and have some queries as to the reality of the nonintuitive aspects of Special Relativity.For a better intro to that subject : Brian Greene’s video course + Peter Collier’s “A most incomprehensible thing” + a lot of others in my comment on “The Principle of Relativity” by Einstein, Weyl and Minkowski.

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