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It's About Time: Understanding Einstein's Relativity |  | Author: N. David Mermin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
List Price: $18.95
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Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 366463
Media: Paperback
Pages: 208
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 0691141274
Dewey Decimal Number: 530
EAN: 9780691141275
ASIN: 0691141274
Publication Date: July 26, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In It's About Time, N. David Mermin asserts that relativity ought to be an important part of everyone's education--after all, it is largely about time, a subject with which all are familiar. The book reveals that some of our most intuitive notions about time are shockingly wrong, and that the real nature of time discovered by Einstein can be rigorously explained without advanced mathematics. This readable exposition of the nature of time as addressed in Einstein's theory of relativity is accessible to anyone who remembers a little high school algebra and elementary plane geometry. The book evolved as Mermin taught the subject to diverse groups of undergraduates at Cornell University, none of them science majors, over three and a half decades. Mermin's approach is imaginative, yet accurate and complete. Clear, lively, and informal, the book will appeal to intellectually curious readers of all kinds, including even professional physicists, who will be intrigued by its highly original approach.
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| Customer Reviews:
 It's About Time March 21, 2007
Vojtech Licko
5 out of 27 found this review helpful
Introduction of formulas a priori with only consecutive derivation is preceptionally inadequate. This combined with too a verbose and insufficiently organized progress of the argument makes for an uneasy reading.
 The importance of thinking relatively March 6, 2006
Dr. S. A. Mitton (Cambridge UK)
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
One hundred years after Einstein published the theory of relativity, publishers are still promoting popular books that explain reltivity to the lay reader. This is the best such book that I have read. That's because Mermin's approach is to help the reder to develop a thinking style so that it becomes almost second nature to get your brain to hop between moving frames of reference. Mermin's thought experiments examine the outcome of experiments performed on moving trains or by moving rockets. The reader discovers the trick of examining the outcome from two points of view: inside the moving train, and outside watching the train go by. Almost everyone, including professers of physics, will benefit from a careful rreading of this book. It does include many equations and diagrams.
finally an elegant text about this subject February 18, 2006
Abhijit Bhattacharya
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
The book is as simple as it can be but not simpler. It is as if Einstein learnt to explain in english. It cleared my way of thinking about time-place events. Now I am just afraid to think how many such simple things can be out there which my mind has not yet ever analysed.
The best way to learn the fundamentals of relativity December 14, 2005
Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States(cashbacher@yahoo.com))
19 out of 20 found this review helpful
The basic ideas making up Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity are relatively easy to understand. The only mathematics required to understand the formulas is basic algebra and very little knowledge of physics is needed. The only essential physics background is an understanding of many of the words of physics. Concepts such as linear momentum, electromagnetic radiation, computing with units, velocity and simultaneity must all be clearly understood before you read this book.
Once into it, you will find some of the best non-technical descriptions of the special theory of relativity that have ever been published. While the author does not pathologically shrink from using equations, he also does not become infatuated with them. There are just enough to demonstrate the concepts and none that I considered superfluous. Many diagrams are used to illustrate the ideas and equations and the text is a superb complement to the formulas and figures.
The world where the special theory of relativity is valid is a strange one where our intuitive ideas based on everyday phenomena no longer apply. However, it is not impossible to understand and this book is the best place to begin that process.
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