Special Relativity (Springer Undergraduate Mathematics Series)

by N.M.J. Woodhouse

This book provides readers with the tools needed to understand the physical basis of special relativity and will enable a confident mathematical understanding of Minkowski's picture of space-time. It features a large number of examples and exercises, ranging from the rather simple through to the more involved and challenging. Coverage includes acceleration and tensors and has an emphasis on space-time diagrams.

Genres: Physics, Textbooks, Mathematics

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Tue Le]

This is a rather odd book. Its style is that of pure mathematics even though the contents pertain to applied mathematics, theoretical physics to be more precise. Thus the author focuses on issues that could be better handled by physical insights or arguments and skims over issues that could clarify the relevant physics. The mathematical typesetting could be a bit weird as well. Why on Earth does the dot product look like a period? Why and does the cross product designated as a wedge?

In all, I prefer "Introduction to Electrodynamics" by David Griffiths. Chapter 12 is an excellent introduction to special relativity.

[Rob]

oh man. when it takes 9 months to get through an 83-page "book", you know something is very wrong. it truly reads like lecture notes. the first third had some nice discussion/exposition, but it steadily degenerated into nothing but inscrutable derivations. for a physics text published in the 90's, the typesetting is awful, like it was typed on an old-fashioned typewritter. oh well.