The Einstein Theory of Relativity: A Trip to the Fourth Dimension by Lillian R. Lieber (PDF)

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“Oh, what a delightful book! This is the clearest explanation of relativity available—and the most fun. It’s great to have it available again. Whether or not you’re a scientist, you will relish this book.”—Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein: His Life and UniverseUsing “just enough mathematics to help and not to hinder the lay reader,” Lillian R. Lieber provides a thorough explanation of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. Her delightful style, in combination with her husband’s charming illustrations, makes for an interesting and accessible read about one of the most celebrated ideas of all times.“A clear and vivid exposition of the essential ideas and methods of the theory of relativity…can be warmly recommended especially to those who cannot spend too much time on the subject.”—Albert Einstein“If you know high-school math, are not afraid of equations, and want to find out what Einstein really said, read Lillian Lieber’s book. She will lead you through special and general relativity, helping you at every step to understand the essential equations, including tensors, with amazing clarity and conciseness. This uniquely charming book remains as vivid as ever and even more helpful, thanks to the excellent new foreward and notes by David Derbes and Robert Jantzen.”—Peter Pesic, author of Abel’s Proof: An Essay on the Sources and Meaning of Mathematical Unsolvability and Sky in a Bottle“Does the nature of time fascinate you? Does gravity seem a mysterious subject? Are you interested in learning just what it is that Einstein actually did that made him so famous? Then this wonderful book is just the thing. I read the original 1945 edition when I was a high-school student in the 1950s, and it had a tremendous impact on me. I predict the same experience for you, or perhaps a young friend, with this new, updated edition.”—Paul J. Nahin, author of Time Machines, Oliver Heaviside, and Dr. Euler’s Fabulous FormulaLillian R. Lieber was a professor and head of the Department of Mathematics at Long Island University. She wrote a series of lighthearted (and well-respected) math books, many of them illustrated by her husband, Hugh Gray Lieber.David Derbes teaches physics at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.Robert Jantzen is a professor of mathematics at Villanova University.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review Praise for Lillian Lieber and The Einstein Theory of Relativity“Oh, what a delightful book! This is the clearest explanation of relativity available―and the most fun. It’s great to have it available again. Whether or not you’re a scientist, you will relish this book.”―Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein: His Life and Universe“A clear and vivid exposition of the essential ideas and methods of the theory of relativity…can be warmly recommended especially to those who cannot spend too much time on the subject.”―Albert Einstein“If you know high-school math, are not afraid of equations, and want to find out what Einstein really said, read Lillian Lieber’s book. She will lead you through special and general relativity, helping you at every step to understand the essential equations, including tensors, with amazing clarity and conciseness. This uniquely charming book remains as vivid as ever and even more helpful, thanks to the excellent new foreward and notes by David Derbes and Robert Jantzen.”―Peter Pesic, author of Abel’s Proof: An Essay on the Sources and Meaning of Mathematical Unsolvability and Sky in a Bottle“Does the nature of time fascinate you? Does gravity seem a mysterious subject? Are you interested in learning just what it is that Einstein actually did that made him so famous? Then this wonderful book is just the thing. I read the original 1945 edition when I was a high-school student in the 1950s, and it had a tremendous impact on me. I predict the same experience for you, or perhaps a young friend, with this new, updated edition.”―Paul J. Nahin, author of Time Machines, Oliver Heaviside, and Dr. Euler’s Fabulous Formula About the Author Lillian R. Lieber was Professor and Head of the Department of Mathematics at Long Island University. She wrote a series of light-hearted (and well-respected) math books, many of them illustrated by her husband. Hugh Gray Lieber was Professor and Head of the Department of Fine Arts at Long Island University. David Derbes teaches physics at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and is a former professor at Tulane University. He is the recipient of a 2007 Golden Apple Award for excellence in teaching. Robert Jantzen is a professor of mathematics at Villanova University. His enthusiasm for abstract mathematics by itself and directed toward relativity started in high school after reading the Lieber’s book on relativity.

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

⭐The perfect way to learn (or relearn) about the math behind Einstein’s theory of relativity. Both General and special relativity are covered in this text. My favorite part: all those wonderful drawings that the author’s husband put together for this book. What a perfect example of two very talented individuals working in perfect harmony!

⭐I ordered this book just after having finished reading one of the other books also written by Lillian R. Liebers, the “Infinity: Beyond the Beyond the Beyond”, which I liked it. And I must say that it has also been a pleasure reading this book. But as a remark it’s only a book for persons who really find a pleasure in reading and understanding mathematic.During my life I have been reading many books concerning the Universe, and thereby for example Black holes, and other new discovering, and have thereby now during the past 50 years bought more than 200 books concerning these subjects. And I must say that the “The Einstein Theory of Relativity” is excellent to read, also for persons who are reading by own interest, and thereby want to understand and learn more. And a book excellent for self-studying because it’s very detailed during the explanations and proves.For example on the side 127 starts the chapter XIV “What is a Tensor?”. I owe many mathematical books, but to me, this book is absolutely the book which I have found to be the best and easiest one to read for persons, who by own hand studying, wants to read about, and understand, how to use the Tensors. Of course we before the Tensors, among other, already in by nice descriptions and explanations have learned about the Vectors.To me, this book is containing just the right amount of needed geometrical drawings, and besides all the other speculative drawing is it delightful to see, for relaxing, and maybe starting speculating about the possibly dimensions of universes, and, curvatures different from the plane Euclidian space.

⭐Despite its quirky format, this book was the first one I found that met my needs. I wanted to have some familiarity with the basic ideas of GR, including the mathematics, but the standard graduate level texts were more than I wanted to tackle. If you read this book, you will know the mathematical foundation of GR – tensor calculus, covariant derivatives, curvature, etc. You keep reading and get to an innocent-looking equation, Gij = 0, when the author tells you that you will be surprised to know these are the Einstein field equations!Now, some things are left out, such as the fact that these are the vacuum field equations only valid in regions of space where the energy-momentum tensor is zero. In fact, there is no discussion of the energy-momentum tensor and of course some things are of necessity stated but not derived. But she does derive the Schwartzschild metric and its consequences (advance of the perihelion of Mercury, bending of light). So all in all I feel the author did a great service by providing such a gentle, yet rigorous, introduction to GR.I might suggest that along with this book you watch the free Stanford course in GR given by Leonard Susskind, consisting of about 12 lectures of 1.5 hours each. I downloaded it on iTunesU but it is no doubt available elsewhere. Although his presentation was sometimes frustrating, it is great that Standford makes this available to the public for free. Between the book and these lectures, I think you will get a very good synopsis of GR.

⭐In my opinion, this is a “must” book for everyone, who wants to learn full general theory of relativity. I had read many books about the GTR (and had a rather difficult time to comprehend them!) before I found a reference to the original (1949!) edition of this book in R. D’Inverno “Introducing Einstein’s Relativity” (a very good book itself). In the introduction D’Inverno mentions how discovering this book in a local library had led him to learn the full GTR while he was only 15! This made him to choose relativity physics as his profession, and also his foreknowledge of the “hard stuff” rather shocked his professors at Oxford! Back to me: a few years ago I have acquired a used original of this book (at a rather steep price!), and immediately loved it, despite that I have already learned lots about the GTR in a “hard way”. When I found that this book is going to be re-issued, I immediately have ordered a copy! Well, first, the re-issue is of a very high quality. Second, it is supplemented by the new editor’s notes, which add lots of the stuff, which is missing in the original edition due to space constraints and the efforts to keep the book as “elementary” as possible. If you want to get a great help in learning the GTR with tensors and all that stuff, to really understand why the star light is bent by the mass of the Sun, or why Mercury’s perihelion precession has extra 43″ arc-seconds per century, buying this at $10 is a no-brainer ! Get it ! Another two good books for the start are:

⭐,

⭐and Sokolnikoff, Tensor Analysis (out of print).

⭐I can’t say enough. As someone who collects bath books, this is charming and unique. I bought all of her works.

⭐A perfect one intro for anyone who has not learned or forgotten tensor calculus, a necessary tool to grasp Relativity.Other textbooks assume a reader knows it already. A lack: Christoffel symbol is only defined without a geometrical explanation as in Q.Gron, A.Naess, Einstein’s Theory.,2011. Unfortunately, there is a lot of expensive junk on the topic with plenty mistakes like on so called “twin paradox”(not touched here). A scandalous situation scientists fool each other and readers (on twin paradox) without reflecting precisely what is measured and what is counted (mathematically) in different systems (of observers). I’ve tried to correct authors and no responses at all except I.Stweart, UK who admitted: “I am only a mathematician”. Theory and experiments are OK but an interpretation is….a disaster (in almost every textbook)r!Be careful folks.

⭐It is a very good book, it is very easy to understand because all theories are explained very detailed and understandable to everyone, does not need you to know advanced math.

⭐This is extremely well written and entertaining. It gives a full understanding of the philosophy and principles and gives an intuitive derivation of the special theory requiring only high school math. It develops the equations of the general theory and gravitation while teaching the tensor math as it goes.

⭐Really complete book, it covers pretty much everything an average person should know about relativity but maybe there’s too much advanced math (anyway it’s needed to fully understand how they got here)

⭐If you allow yourself only one book on Relativity, this is the one.See my complete review in the comments about “The Principle of Relativity” (Einstein, Lorentz, Weyl, Minkowski).

⭐NIce book

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