Easy Lessons in Einstein: A Discussion of the More Intelligible Features of the Theory of Relativity

by Edwin Emery Slosson, Albert Einstein (Contributor)

SCENE: A street car in uniform movement of translation in any direction.
TIME: The present.

The Reader: (looking over the top of a morning paper) Here's something queer -a whole page taken with a new discovery in physics- Eclipse Observations Confirm Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Anything about it in your paper?
The author: Yes. Heres a cartoon on it by Mc-Cutcheon.
The Reader: Must be something to it then. Mc-Cutcheon always knows whats news.
(Reads on with audible fragments)
Most sensational discovery in the history of science - "Greatest achievement of the human intellect"--"Upsets Galileo, Newton, and Euclid"--"Revolution in philosophy and theology." It looks as though I ought to know something about this, doesn't it?
The Author: I think you will have to sometime. And you might as well do it now and get it over with.
The Reader: (running down the column and hitting the high spots) "Parallel lines meet"--"a man moving with the speed of light never grows old"--"gravitation due to a warp in space"--"length of a measuring stick depends upon direction of its motion"--"mass is latent energy"--"time as a fourth dimension"-- why, the man is crazy, isn't he.
The Author: Well, definitions of insanity are so uncertain that it is not safe to say who is crazy. But it seems there's method in his madness-- otherwise how could he have hit upon the exact extent of the sun's attraction on light?
The Reader: (picks up his paper and reads aloud with concentrated attention) "Postulate I. Every law of nature which holds good with respect to a coordinate system K must also hold good for any other system K', provided that K and K' are in uniform movement of translation." Say, do you know anything about this business?
The Author: Well, yes, a little. I have followed the controversy--at a safe distance-- for a number of years.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Physics

140 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

Edwin Emery Slosson (1865 – 1929) was an American magazine editor, author, journalist and chemist. He was the first head of Science Service, and a notable popularizer of science.

Reviews

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe this is actually more of a four-star book. It does a remarkably good job in simplifying the theory relativity for the casual reader by presenting it through a range of fictional conversations. However, I feel more constrained to keep it at a perfectly respectable three merely because my attention wavered in and out as I listened to it, which was much more likely my fault than this book itself, but all the same I didn't follow it well enough to say it was as high as a four-star experience personally.

[Sotiris Makrygiannis · Rating 4 out of 5]

It will start from the end of the book, which contains a fantastic letter written by Einstein himself and published around the same time as the Lenin revolution in Russia, 1918. He claims proudly that he is a Jew from Switzerland and a German man of Science. He explains to a UK audience that he is not attacking their magnificent Newton nor Newtonian physics. His attack is on Euclidean Elements (Στοιχεῖα Stoikheîa) by using the Empedocles 4 Element of life and the addition that Aristoteles made by adding Aether.

He comes after 3000 years and 100 billion births to challenge Greek logic with his imagination. Im not saying maths becouse Einstein was not good at maths. His teacher in maths, Constantin Carathéodory (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Καραθεοδωρή), didnt do a good job teaching him. Einstein's superpower was not maths but imagination and simplifying complex problems.

Aether used as part of his imagination mix has now been removed from science books and replaced by Dark matter and Dark Energy. Even though Aether means Black (Aithiopes (Ethiopians; see Aethiopia), telling "people with a burnt (black) visage"), it has been replaced with a more explicit term nowadays.

Back then, only 12 people could understand what he was talking about, which was very simple; the maths proving it, however, was very hard.

Hold a piece of paper with both hands, and ask a friend to add a rock; what happens to the article? It bends. Here you go; time-space BENDS when an external force is applied. That is the basic logic of Einstein, but you need to use advanced mathematics to prove what you observe. You need to add the coordinates of each element and calculate every move and interaction, and the maths equation must match what the eye sees. That is pure Science, to test and verify.

With this approach, Einstein could imagine to his head the whole universe around us and then had the will and the courage to try to prove it with maths or ask others to correct his formulas, but it did no matter. Once he solved the maths, he could simplify even further by claiming E=mc² .

This book tries to simplify the maths around it with examples, and tests that were made back then, to transfer that wild imagination of the genius to all, to popularize the subject. I think it does a great job.

I Im not sure if Einstein was the first to understand the cosmos and the forces around it among us. Another Great Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, and his theory of Musica Universalis. We have only fragments of that work; many of his papers either burned in the great fire of Alexandria or Christian priests reused the paper and wrote Christian texts on top of them. Im am sure that the time will come in the future that Einstein will be challenged back by the same people he challenged, but first, we need to find those lost documents. Even more importantly, to understand why 3000 years passed and this earth gave us only 1 Einstein.

That, for me, is a bigger mystery than how the outside universe works. What do you think?

[Denise Nader · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Easy Lessons in Einstein" fue escrito en 1920 por E. Slosson, un conocido divulgador y periodista de la época. Decidió escribir este breve texto para explicar la teoría de la relatividad de Einstein de manera accesible, sin términos matemáticos complicados, utilizando analogías y ejemplos cotidianos, y esa es la parte más fascinante. Es muy interesante leer los debates intelectuales de esa época, las metáforas y analogías que se usaban para explicar el "novedoso" concepto de la relatividad, los esfuerzos de la comunidad científica por validar el trabajo de una de las mentes más brillantes y atrevidas de la época. Leer este libro es como viajar en el tiempo y percibir el terremoto paradigmal que se produjo al cambiar a Newton por el buen Alfred.

[J.R. Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

My father bought me this book when I was thirteen years old. I think he realized it was a sort intellectual kindling. If it is possible to really love something without completely understanding it, this book certainly qualifies. It began a lifelong quest which has made life all the more enjoyable.

[Josiah Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super helpful in understanding the ins and outs of the most important physics discovery in the past century. When Einstein originally put out his work, he stated that there were under 20 people in the world who would understand it accurately. We've come a long way since then, and this book (written by one of those original 20) assists in properly understanding the Theory of Relativity. Very interesting.

[Amruta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had a fairly simple understanding of Einstein's general relativity theory since it was explained to me in class 12 by physics and maths teachers. But it was never explained the way this book does. It goes over different events that lead up to confirmation of Einstein's general relativity theory. It uses a lot of weird quirky scenarios to explain the concepts like the spacetime curvature, time dilation etc. And it is all compiled in a fairly concise way. Great read.

[Audiobook Heaven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, I listened to the audiobook version on YouTube. I will leave the link below so that everyone can enjoy it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzGgY...

[Nada Mohamed · Rating 5 out of 5]

if there is more than 5 stars I would surely choose it , this one of the best book I've ever read about relativity , it is simple , clear , with clear example I just can't describe it xD

if you would like to understand what relativity is based on you should give this book a try a huge one , I am thinking seriously in rereading this book again .

my brain at the moment is full of relativity storms xD , THIS BOOK SIMPLY ROCKS

small number of pages great number of knowledge and information I can finally say that it is really great job :)

[John Willemse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not extraordinarily insightful, but nevertheless a fun journey through some of the aspects of the Theory of Relativity. Slosson tries to explain in non-scientific language the implications of Einstein's proposals and gives absurd analogies to support them. All in all it was worth reading and made me understand Einstein's theories better, and that was the purpose of the author.

[Czarina Charters · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the heck out of this book. It's great listening to people reference HG Wells in the Present tense.
The book is well written, well thought out, hilarious (imho). It doesn't take itself too seriously but also treats both it's audience and the subject matter with the respect due to them. The tone never becomes pedantic.

[Vikram X · Rating 3 out of 5]

After 30 minutes into Einstein's Theory of Relativity ; I released I need to scale down my ambitious quest to something more palpable like this book ,the book has easy examples explaining the theory with real life scenarios , good start for those testing the water.

[Muhammad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very very thoughtful book

rich of examples and easy to understand

[D. Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good and pretty easy too.

[Eddy George Eden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book about relativity, explains the ideas of Einstein in a simpler way. All in all a good book but at the same time difficult to understand properly.