Since for many students this is their first encounter with physics, I introduce new concepts by qualitative and intuitive discussions whenever possible. And to motivate students and to maintain their enthusiasm, I have drawn on examples from sports, biology, medicine, and everyday life, chosen to match the background and special interests of the students.

The third edition of this classic textbook is a quantitative introduction for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. It gently guides students from Newton's gravitational theory to special relativity, and then to the relativistic theory of gravitation. General relativity is approached from several perspectives: as a theory constructed by analogy with Maxwell's electrodynamics, as a relativistic generalization of Newton's theory, and as a theory of curved spacetime. The authors provide a concise overview of the important concepts and formulas, coupled with the experimental results underpinning the latest research in the field. Numerous exercises in Newtonian gravitational theory and Maxwell's equations help students master essential concepts for advanced work in general relativity, while detailed spacetime diagrams encourage them to think in terms of four-dimensional geometry. Featuring comprehensive reviews of recent experimental and observational data, the text concludes with chapters on cosmology and the physics of the Big Bang and inflation.

The text presents a modern view of classical mechanics and electromagnetism for today's science and engineering students, including coverage of optics and quantum physics and emphasizing the relationship between macroscopic and microscopic phenomena. Organized to address specific concepts and then build on them, this highly readable text divides each chapter into short, focused sections followed by review questions. Using real-world examples, the authors offer a glimpse of the practical applications of physics in science and engineering, developing a solid conceptual foundation before introducing mathematical results and derivations (a basic knowledge of derivatives and integrals is assumed).

Although Einstein was the greatest genius of the twentieth century, many of his groundbreaking discoveries were blighted by mistakes, ranging from serious errors in mathematics to bad misconceptions in physics and failures to grasp the subtleties of his own creations. This forensic biography dissects Einstein s scientific mistakes and places them in the context of his turbulent life and times. In lively, accessible prose, Hans C. Ohanian paints a fresh, insightful portrait of the real Einstein at work, in contrast to the uncritical celebrity worship found in many biographies. Of the approximately 180 original scientific papers that Einstein published in his lifetime, about 40 are infested with mistakes. For instance, Einstein s first mathematical proof of the famous formula E = mc2 was incomplete and only approximately valid; he struggled with this problem for many years, but he never found a complete proof (better mathematicians did). Einstein was often lured by irrational and mystical inspirations, but his extraordinary intuition about physics permitted him to discover profound truths despite and sometimes because of the mistakes he made along the way. He was a sleepwalker: his intuition told him where he needed to go, and he somehow managed to get there without quite knowing how. As this book persuasively argues, the defining hallmark of Einstein s genius was not any special mathematical ability but an uncanny talent to use his mistakes as stepping stones to formulate his revolutionary theories."