Spacetime Physics

by Edwin F. Taylor, John Archibald Wheeler

Developed for the first month of a freshman physics course, Spacetime Physics exemplifies today's readiness to place the simplifying discoveries of Einstein and others at the beginning of the study of physics rather than at the end. The book provides an elementary, yet sound and rigorous, introduction to relativity and brings closer the day when the student of physics will be as much at home with the geometry of spacetime as the student in an earlier century was with Euclidean geometry.

Genres: Physics, Science, Nonfiction, Textbooks, Mathematics, Technical

208 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Edwin Floriman Taylor was an American physicist known for his contributions to the teaching of physics. Taylor was editor of the American Journal of Physics, and author of several introductory books to physics. In 1998 he was awarded the Oersted Medal for his contributions to the teaching of physics.

Reviews

[Sara]

This is easily the best introduction to Special Relativity. Good exercises.

[Giovanni Casinelli]

Exceptional book. It doesn't go very deep into the various formulas of special relativity, but as far as the understanding of the subject is concerned it's really amazing.

It can be read and (hopefully) understood by anyone with some basic physics knowledge (an high school course would do). In fact it really focuses on explaining the concepts which it makes definitely accessible to most people. This doesn't mean it has no formulas or mathematics, but that's probably the simpler part to understand in special relativity.

[DJ]

For students studying physics, special relativity is often relegated to a brief mention in your electromagnetism and mechanics courses, yet never fully treated on its own. Even for the self-motivated learner, there's a disappointing gap between special relativity as presented in popular science literature and the general relativity textbooks used in university courses. Spacetime Physics fills that gap.

Taylor and Wheeler offer a quirky approach to Einstein's theory of special relativity that is full of analogies, examples, and interesting problems. There are two features of this book that are appalling to some and yet to others (like me) were key reasons I enjoyed it.

First, much of the learning is done through solving problems. If you simply read the text sections, you'll completely miss a vast portion of the content of this book. This is a great feature for the self-motivated learner, but not-so-much for someone just looking to pass a class that touches on special relativity. Though most answers are not provided, Taylor and Wheeler also guide the reader through many of the exercises, offering plenty of insights into problem-solving and neat physical effects of relativity.

Second, this book is peppered with analogies and stories. If you've been milked on the teet of Landau& Lifshcitz and are appalled by a superfluous word or (*gasp*) humor in your textbook, then look elsewhere. But if you truly enjoy physics and can appreciate the authors' use of creative parallels and mind play, then you'll bask in the originality of this gem.

[sine]

Whenever I think about the spacetime interval and the proper time, I recall the story about Daytimers and Nighttimers. This is not an ordinary special relativity textbook but a wonderful book enriched with many stories and dialogues. The topic is presented well, and although I miss more mathematics, it's an introductory book to special relativity and requires only high-school algebra (no calculus). The last chapter very lightly touches the geometry of curved space, which has a follow-up in the second book from the same authors (Exploring Black Holes).

I only wish to have time to do more exercises. There are plenty in the book, but if you omit them, the book is accessible for anyone curious enough to read about the topic.

[Michael]

Like a Schaum's outline: mostly solved problems (the same few problems over and over.)

[Ron Banister]

Well done exposition on Special Relativity. Excellent exercises & examples.

[Carboxamide]

I used this book to independently learn about special relativity, having read reviews recommending it for this use case. I was very impressed. The authors of the book are very engaging, presenting the topic in a very fun and easy to understand way, filling it with relevant stories and diagrams to help understand. In some parts, the book follows a dialogue style, and it was very well done in making it easy to understand and engaging at the same time.

This book did not utilize a lot of math, but high school level math and physics are necessary - particularly basic Newtonian physics and very basic Euclidean plane geometry. If you're looking at this book, you probably already know these, maybe just not by those names.

[Rudradeep Mukherjee]

Truly remarkable book. It started with demolishing the sacredness of light speed and suddenly the entire path was illuminated. The authors kept emphasising on the same points again and again. It was to make sure that the student cleared up all his misconceptions and learn the true state of spacetime physics as we know. This book chiefly deals with special relativity, where tidal effects of "gravitation" and curvature of spacetime is dealt briefly in the last chapter. Highly recommended for anyone who never got around to understand the implications of special relativity in their classes.

[Anthony O'Connor]

This is an excellent introduction to Special Relativity and a bit of a look at General Relativity as its natural, well, generalization. It is a bit tedious to read. Too many distractions and sidebars. Too many tedious examples and calculations. But it does seem to lay out all of the essential ideas deeply and clearly.

[Mary T]

Elementary, repetitive and dated with eccentric language and layout, but this is an excellent book. The real point of the book is, I believe, to get the reader to start thinking like John Wheeler.

[jamothy]

It's quite light-hearted and approachable introduction to special relativity. I love books that I can understand.

[Roberto]

No voy a mentir, no he entendido todo, pero me parece que en general te quedas un poco con la onda de las cosas.

[Denise Muñoz]

Taylor dispels the dizzying paradoxes of cosmic scale to bring the striking logic of modern physics into crisp focus. He reconstructs the invariant interval, time dilation, and momentum 4-vectors, treating the fabric of space and time not as fixed backdrops, but as a fluid, unified arena of motion.

Why It Matters
It breaks your intuitive illusions about reality to build a completely new geometric intuition. Taylor proves that our everyday perceptions of space and time are merely subjective projections of a much deeper four-dimensional universe.

So Why Read It
A brilliant conceptual gateway that shatters your common-sense assumptions and reshapes how you perceive reality. An absolute must-read for expanding your mind to match the actual scale and rules of our universe.

[Robu-sensei]

A clear, intuitive introduction to special relativity, presented mostly in terms of analogy. The focus is very precise—the three chapters cover reference frames, motion, momentum and energy, and that's it—but if you plow through the discussion and exercises, you will emerge with complete comprehension. The questions at the end of each chapter are daunting, but explanations, which together with the exercises themselves are longer than the chapters, can be found in the back.

[Ryan Moulton]

This was my favorite college textbook, and I regret selling it back. It's as clear and simple an explanation of special relativity as I can imagine. The problem sets in it are very light on symbol manipulation and big on conceptual breakthroughs. If the "mind bending" consequences of special relativity are what you enjoy, this book will point out every kink and straighten it out. Most of the problems open with an apparent paradox. Reading this book feels like playing Braid.

[Dieter Orens]

Very hard to beat in explaining the concepts. Congratulations to the authors.

The only issue I have is that it comes with exercises and only the odd ones have solutions, mostly just numbers. For people like me who learn this on their own it would be nice to be able to buy a solutions guide. There are worked samples in the book which help but they are a minority.

[Ronald Lett]

Special Relativity in all of its glory exposed using only high school mathematics. This is not a layman's treatment, it is the full theory. Any high school student wishing to learn this topic who has studied high school physics will be delighted with this text.

[Troy Soos]

The exercises are excellent.

[Tim Josling]

Best introduction to special relativity by a mile. Wonderful.

[Lulu]

Special relativity