Space, Time, Matter (Dover Books on Physics) by Hermann Weyl (PDF)

Description

“The standard treatise on the general theory of relativity.” — Nature”Whatever the future may bring, Professor Weyl’s book will remain a classic of physics.” — British Journal for Philosophy and ScienceReflecting the revolution in scientific and philosophic thought which accompanied the Einstein relativity theories, Dr. Weyl has probed deeply into the notions of space, time, and matter. A rigorous examination of the state of our knowledge of the world following these developments is undertaken with this guiding principle: that although further scientific thought may take us far beyond our present conception of the world, we may never again return to the previous narrow and restricted scheme.Although a degree of mathematical sophistication is presupposed, Dr. Weyl develops all the tensor calculus necessary to his exposition. He then proceeds to an analysis of the concept of Euclidean space and the spatial conceptions of Riemann. From this the nature of the amalgamation of space and time is derived. This leads to an exposition and examination of Einstein’s general theory of relativity and the concomitant theory of gravitation. A detailed investigation follows devoted to gravitational waves, a rigorous solution of the problem of one body, laws of conservation, and the energy of gravitation. Dr. Weyl’s introduction of the concept of tensor-density as a magnitude of quantity (contrasted with tensors which are considered to be magnitudes of intensity) is a major step toward a clearer understanding of the relationships among space, time, and matter.

User’s Reviews

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

⭐Weyl’s book is most famous for introducing gauge theory, which was later reborn in the form of phase transformations in quantum theory. Weyl did not live guite long enough to hear of the latter being applied by Yang and Mills, though he socially interacted with Yang in his last year at Princeton.Einstein and Pauli both criticized Weyl’s original unified theory based on general relativity using a length gauge, both as implying false empirical consequences (Einstein), since it implied tiny changes of length dependent on path and as untestable (Pauli). (Obviously it could not both be empirically false and non-empirical.) Yet Eddington and later Einstein himself revived similar theories. Eddington claimed that the length differences were to tiny as to be undetectable, but also that his own gauge theory could be thought of not as literal space/time structure but as a geometrization of an abstract background theory for specific space/time structures.Thomas Ryckman’s

⭐has an excellent eighty page discussion of these ideas of Weyl in relativity, as well as chapters on those of Eddington in the 1920s.Another novelty is Weyl’s suggestion that General Relativity could be tied to observation via the conformal structure as representing light cones and the projective structure as particles in free fall. This alternative to the rods and clocks approach, on the basis of which Weyl was criticized, has been developed by Ehlers (who edited the new German edition of this work

⭐) Pirani and Schild.Weyl also introduces what he calls “tensor densities” which Shouten called “Weyl tensors” and Synge and Schild call oriented tensors, often called twisted tensors. These are analogous to and include “axial vectors.”Weyl’s introduction of the “affine connection” after criticism of Levi-Civita’s notion of parallelism led the way to further notions of connections and generalization of the notion of connection as such by Elie Cartan and others.These are but a few of the intellectual gems in this work.The philosophical parts are, unfortunately, almost uniformly mistranslated. The phenomenological introduction is re-translated in Kockelmans and Kisiel, eds.

⭐. (Courant suggested Weyl as successor to Husserl in the philosophy chair at Goettingen!) This together with the misprints in formulas, makes it desirable that the whole book be retranslated.

⭐The book teaches a way to study relativity not as an intellectual jump from Newton to Einstein, but by a method of “analytical continuation” after the concept of “measurement” is cleaned up.One needs to be a little careful about some of the words such as Force. The use is correct but over time, the phrases are changed and we would say the same things differently. It can be confusing at times. I needed to re-read a few times to see things clearly enough to go on.I noticed one good omen. I think the book has the author’s signature in it (?). If I am right, I never said it and I do not have it. I know nothing!! Even though old, the book became very useful to me in learning the subject. Thanks

⭐Typesetting of this book was terrible, the paper as well. They cut it so narrow that the text goes almost to the edge of the book at most pages.

⭐0 star rating? Kindle edition nearly worthless – mangled text and no formula, equation or mathematical expression legible.

⭐Classics

⭐I just read a few pages of the first chapter, it’s definitely not an easy book to go through. For those who are interested in the theory of relativity, I think it’s worth while.

⭐This book bewitched several generations of physicists and students. Hermann Weyl was one of the very great mathematicians of this century. He was also a great physicist and an artist with ideas and words. In this book you will find, at a deep level, the philosophy, mathematics and physics of space-time. It appeared soon after Einstein’s famous paper on General Relativity, and is, in fact, a magnificent exposition of it, or, rather, of a tentative generalization of it. The mathematical part is of the highest class, striving to put geometry to the forefront. Actually, the book introduced a far-reaching generalization of the theory of connections, with respect to the Levi-Civita theory. It was not a generalization for itself, but motivated by the dream (Einstein’s) of including gravitation and electromagnetism in the same (geometrical) theory. The result was gauge theory, which, slightly modified and applied to quantum mechanics resulted in the theory which dominates prese! nt particle physics. Weyl’s unified theory was proved wrong by Einstein, and his criticism alone, accepted by Weyl and included in the book, would justify the reading. Though wrong, Weyl’s theory is so beautiful that Paul Dirac stated that nature could not afford neglecting such perfection, and that the theory was probably only misplaced. Prophetic words! The philosophic parts are, alas, too much for our present cultural level, but you can ignore them. The mathematical and physical parts are perfectly accessible and, of course, of the highest class. The pity is that the number of misprints is immense, particularly in the formulas, so that the reading is made much more difficult than it should. Also, the English edition is not the latest one. If you read German, choose the original, also available here.

⭐I bought this book as an accompaniment to a Physics course covering the Einstein relativity theories.As the book indicates “a degree of mathematical sophistication is presupposed”.This is rather an understatement, although the author does develop all the tensor calculus and affine geometry necessary.An analysis of Euclidean and Riemann space is included leading to Einstein’s general theory of relativity and theory of gravitation/gravitational waves-.with under 350 pages the author covers a huge range of concepts in pure physicsUnless you are prepared to master the advanced mathematics required this may not be the ideal book to with which to approach Einstein’s theories.That said, I felt drawn into the subject matter- notwithstanding my shortcomings in vector algebra and integral calculus.

⭐The right side blank spaces of pages of the book are very narrow and it is unexpected from Dover Publication.

⭐Produto correto. Atendimento excelente, perfeito. Obrigado.

⭐L’un des meilleurs ouvrages scientifiques sur l’Espace-Temps et les Relativités (restreinte et générale) écrits depuis presque un siécle !!!!!! Absolument indispensable pour comprendre les bases théoriques de la Physique Moderne

⭐

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