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Books > Science & Mathematics > Physics > Relativity physics > General
Books on Einstein and his theories abound. However, this book is
uniquely different. It presents key concepts in Special and General
Relativity, in verse form. The aim is to make Einstein's insights
more fun to learn. It uses rhyme and rhythm to render reading
memorable and thus pleasurable. Moreover, what is pleasurable may
foster a better understanding, as well as retention, of ideas. Use
of verse apparently worked effectively in ancient times: in the
Iliad and Odyssey of Homer among the Greeks; in the Vedas and
Upanishads of ancient India; both rhyme, in the form of
alliteration, and rhythm in Beowulf among the Anglo-Saxons, etc.
The target reader is college-educated, or college student in third
year, or anyone willing to puzzle it out, who desires to understand
why time slows down and lengths contract when objects are in
relative motion; how Science, Einstein's theories in particular,
can contribute to answering the perennial question: what it is to
be human; how to time travel to the future by staying young; etc.
Relativity has a reputation of being difficult. For example,
curvature of spacetime seems so abstruse, so forbidding a concept.
But, do not disarm yourself prematurely. Do not be intimidated. As
it turns out, curvature of spacetime is tidal gravity, the cause of
familiar ocean tides. You may even have a gut feel for it. This
book will not teach you how to solve problems in Relativity. Nor
will it teach you how to prove The shortest distance takes the
longest time. No, we will spend our time grasping Einstein's
insights, their implications on Reality and on mind; and amid our
quest, on what it means to be human. More fun to learn does not
mean that verse form is the lazy road to learning. It does not mean
that verse form makes the difficult easy, or, the rough, plain. No,
the difficult remains difficult; the rough remains rough. And to
grasp it, you have to exert a determined, sustained effort and be
willing to stretch your mind to accommodate the wild notions in
Relativity. The idea motivating this book is to make the stretching
more enjoyable relative to prose by using the rhyme-rhythm features
of verse. But, stretch your mind, you have to. There is no royal,
poetic road to learning There is a feature in our history, that
stands out in view of our concerns in conveying knowledge-a feature
that the ancients aptly used. It is the oral tradition. Since the
first humans appeared, oral tradition was the sole means in
transmitting knowledge for a very long time, indeed. If we fit the
whole time since the first humans lived into a year, then writing
started only about the morning of 30th of December. That is a huge
time in which oral tradition operated, i.e. about 99.5% of our time
as humans. What does this imply? We transmitted information orally;
and we received information aurally This oral-aural conveyance was
the way for all information, including that of knowledge. In
addition, during the five hundred thousand years or so, oral
tradition honed our brains to receive knowledge aurally. To me,
this implies that our brains have a natural deep resonance to
features of language in the oral tradition. The key language
features in the oral tradition are the rhymes and rhythms of verse.
I wrote this book in verse, inspired by this thought: to make the
most out of the resonant structures in our brains engendered by
oral tradition, to convey the deep insights of Einstein on Reality.
It is my sincere wish that Einstein's ideas will find recognition
in the public understanding and thus inform the public outlook. I
invite you, everyone: Hop in with me, a time machine we ride,
Intent on chasing space-time concepts wild; To fathom Einstein's
insights into Reality, In his Special and General Relativity. Like
Wordsworth, a lonely cloud wandering, Through space and time we
will be winging, Not to appreciate the daffodils of Nature; But to
understand Nature's Architecture
The meaning of life and light are not simple to explain. The
universe cannot exist without either of these critical dimensional
components. Light is not the reflection of electro-magnetic waves
we have been taught in school and existence without life is
meaningless. After you read this book, things will become clearer
to you.
Introduction to General Relativity and Cosmology gives
undergraduate students an overview of the fundamental ideas behind
the geometric theory of gravitation and spacetime. Through pointers
on how to modify and generalise Einstein's theory to enhance
understanding, it provides a link between standard textbook content
and current research in the field.Chapters present complicated
material practically and concisely, initially dealing with the
mathematical foundations of the theory of relativity, in particular
differential geometry. This is followed by a discussion of the
Einstein field equations and their various properties. Also given
is analysis of the important Schwarzschild solutions, followed by
application of general relativity to cosmology. Questions with
fully worked answers are provided at the end of each chapter to aid
comprehension and guide learning. This pared down textbook is
specifically designed for new students looking for a workable,
simple presentation of some of the key theories in modern physics
and mathematics.
The notion that fundamental equations governing the motions of
physical systems are invariant under the time reversal
transformation (T) has been an important, but often subliminal,
element in the development of theoretical physics. It serves as a
powerful and useful tool in analyzing the structure of matter at
all scales, from gases and condensed matter to subnuclear physics
and the quantum theory of fields. The assumption of invariance
under T was called into question, however, by the 1964 discovery
that a closely related assumption, that of CP invariance (where C
is charge conjugation and P is space inversion), is violated in the
decay of neutral K mesons.
In The Physics of Time Reversal, Robert G. Sachs comprehensively
treats the role of the transformation T, both as a tool for
analyzing the structure of matter and as a field of fundamental
research relating to CP violation. For this purpose he reformulates
the definitions of T, P, and C so as to avoid subliminal
assumptions of invariance. He summarizes the standard phenomenology
of CP violation in the K-meson system and addresses the question of
the mysterious origin of CP violation. Using simple examples based
on the standard quark model, Sachs summarizes and illustrates how
these phenomenological methods can be extended to analysis of
future experiments on heavy mesons. He notes that his reformulated
approach to conventional quantum field theory leads to new
questions about the meaning of the transformations in the context
of recent theoretical developments such as non-Abelian gauge
theories, and he suggests ways in which these questions may lead to
new directions of research.
*Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 in the Sunday Times* The full
inside story of the detection of gravitational waves at LIGO, one
of the most ambitious feats in scientific history. Travel around
the world 100 billion times. A strong gravitational wave will
briefly change that distance by less than the thickness of a human
hair. We have perhaps less than a few tenths of a second to perform
this measurement. And we don't know if this infinitesimal event
will come next month, next year or perhaps in thirty years. In 1916
Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves: miniscule
ripples in the very fabric of spacetime generated by unfathomably
powerful events. If such vibrations could somehow be recorded, we
could observe our universe for the first time through sound: the
hissing of the Big Bang, the whale-like tunes of collapsing stars,
the low tones of merging galaxies, the drumbeat of two black holes
collapsing into one. For decades, astrophysicists have searched for
a way of doing so... In 2016 a team of hundreds of scientists at
work on a billion-dollar experiment made history when they
announced the first ever detection of a gravitational wave,
confirming Einstein's prediction. This is their story, and the
story of the most sensitive scientific instrument ever made: LIGO.
Based on complete access to LIGO and the scientists who created it,
Black Hole Blues provides a firsthand account of this astonishing
achievement: a compelling, intimate portrait of cutting-edge
science at its most awe-inspiring and ambitious.
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