Spacetime Physics, Second Edition

by Edwin F. Taylor and John Archibald Wheeler
New York, W. H. Freeman and Co., 1992
ISBN:0-7167-2327-1.

A deep and simple overview of the principles of relativity.

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Collaboration on the First Edition of Spacetime Physics began in the mid-1960s when Edwin Taylor took a junior faculty sabbatical at Princeton University where John Wheeler was a professor. The resulting text emphasized the unity of spacetime and those quantities (such as proper time, proper distance, mass) that are invariant, the same for all observers, rather than those quantities (such as space and time separations) that are relative, different for different observers. The text has become a standard for modern physics and relativity courses, as wel as introductory physics.

The Second Edition of Spacetime Physics embodies what the authors had learned during an additional quarter century of teaching and research. They updated the text to reflect the immense strides in physics during the same period and modernized and increased the number of exercises, for which the First Edition was famous. Enrichment boxes provide expanded coverage of intriguing topics. Sample problems encourage students to exercise their newfound power. An enlarged final chapter on general relativity includes material on gravity waves, black holes, and cosmology.

Also available for full download from the Internet Archive.

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