Relativity and Geometry (Dover Books on Physics)

ISBN: 0486690466

Author: Torretti, Roberto

Condition: New

Early in this century, it was shown that the new non-Newtonian physics - known as Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity - rested on a new, non-Euclidean geometry, which incorporated time and space into a unified "chronogeometric" structure. This high-level study elucidates the motivation and significance of the changes in physical geometry brought about by Einstein, in both the first and the second phase of Relativity.After a discussion of Newtonian principles and 19th-century views on electrodynamics and the aether, the author offers illuminating expositions of Einstein's electrodynamics of moving bodies, Minkowski spacetime, Einstein's quest for a theory of gravity, gravitational geometry, the concept of simultaneity, time and causality and other topics. An important Appendix - designed to define spacetime curvature - considers differentiable manifolds, fiber bundles, linear connections and useful formulae.Relativity continues to be a major focus of interest for physicists, mathematicians and philosophers of science. This highly regarded work offers them a rich, "historico-critical" exposition - emphasizing geometrical ideas - of the elements of the Special and General Theory of Relativity.