Relativity and the Nature of Spacetime (The Frontiers Collection) 1st Edition by Vesselin Petkov (PDF)

Description

Puts the emphasis on conceptual questions: Why is there no such thing as absolute motion? What is the physical meaning of relativity of simultaneity? But, the most important question that is addressed in this book is “what is the nature of spacetime?” or, equivalently, “what is the dimensionality of the world at the macroscopic level?” Develops answers to these questions via a thorough analysis of relativistic effects and explicitly asking whether the objects involved in those effects are three-dimensional or four-dimensional. Discusses the implication of the result (this analysis clearly shows that if the world and the physical objects were three-dimensional, none of the kinematic relativistic effects and the experimental evidence supporting them would be possible) for physics, philosophy, and our entire world view are discussed.

User’s Reviews

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

⭐Petkov is to be praised for that fundamental, exhaustive, clear and didactic treatment of the nature and physical meaning of spacetime, at the basis of relativity, from Galileo to Minkowski… Revisiting special relativity, general relativity and inertia, via the concepts of worldtubes… Up to the linkage to quantum mechanics… In a deep, conceptual analysis, where pros and cons are fully examined, ending with a beautiful synthesis (even though I found his section 5.5, about thee twin paradox using the clock postulate, unconvincing…).This is not a first book though and readers will fully enjoy it only after a good exposure to relativity textbooks : see a proposed route in my review of Einstein’s, Lorentz’s, Weyl’s and Minkowski’s original texts in “The Principle of Relativity” (Dover).

⭐In almost all books about Special Relativity, the foundations are presented without explanation, just in a dogmatic way or as results of the disagreement between experience and theory and calculations start with students full of doubts, getting them crazy about of “what time is what?”, “what velocity is what?, etc.This book follows another totally different way, building Special Relativity step by step, using deep thinking and squeezing the internal coherence of the theoretical physics and comparing with experience, getting a grasp in the new ideas that is always desired.Petkov develops new interpretations and shed new light to a subject that is usually presented as something rather bored, old fashioned and just a matter of academic exercise.This way allows self learning and is ideal for teaching. The discussion of the implications of Galilean postulates is just beautiful and the philosophical implications are profound and coherent. I use this text when I teach Special Relativity and usually spend four or six hours discussing the ideas there presented and I am sure that my students not only can calculate but they know what they are calculating.Dr. Carlos Leiva

⭐I teach cosmology, therefore I found this book very useful. The examples and pictures are so suggestive that it its easy to understand almost every hard consequences of relativity.

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