⇒ Read Galloping with Light Einstein Relativity and Folklore Felix AlbaJuez Manuel TohariaCortés Jesús ZamoraBonilla 9781456373856 Books

Galloping with Light Einstein Relativity and Folklore Felix AlbaJuez Manuel TohariaCortés Jesús ZamoraBonilla 9781456373856 Books

Download As PDF : Galloping with Light Einstein Relativity and Folklore Felix AlbaJuez Manuel TohariaCortés Jesús ZamoraBonilla 9781456373856 Books

Galloping with Light Einstein Relativity and Folklore Felix AlbaJuez Manuel TohariaCortés Jesús ZamoraBonilla 9781456373856 Books

This Chapter is like a deLIGHTful jigsaw puzzle! To get a proper grasp of the Theory of Special Relativity, the reader has to fit together so many pieces of knowledge from Chapters 1-5, as well as the new ones from this Chapter. Fortunately, a variety of means of transport (a train, a car, a spaceship, all sorts of miraculous horses, ...) and thorough instructions, accompanied with excellently deployed signposts (i.e. diagrams and graphs), help the reader to get a wonderfully clear picture of:
- the behavior of light (i.e. electromagnetic radiation) and the reasons for its limit speed,
- the difference between Minkowski's "space-time" and classical "space" and "time",
- the concept of the tetra-dimensional "event interval" (i.e. "space-time interval"),
- the classical vs. relativistic notions of Past, Present and Future,
- the role of Einstein's definition of the relativity of simultaneity in the interpretation of the relativistic contraction of space and dilation of time, wonderfully well-explained through illustrative examples with two lightning bolts, an optical clock, the first episode of a space-flight serial concerning the so-called "twins' paradox" (to be continued in Chapter 7) and the real case of cosmic radiation measured in the experiment on Mount Washington.

The above is, again, interwoven with the amazingly well weighed-out additional information and historical reviews:
- a brief review of the principles of relativity throughout history, and the birth of the concept of the Principle of Special Relativity (Poincaré) ,
- the birth of Einstein's two postulates, i.e. the Principle of Special Relativity and the Principle of the Constant Velocity of Light in Vacuum,
- Einstein's interpretation of the Lorentz Transformation and Fitzgerald/Lorentz contraction of bodies and dilation of time,
- a brief explanation of other tetra-dimensional absolute magnitudes (momentum-energy, the electromagnetic field),
- an explanation why Special Relativity, even though it is strictly valid for Inertial Frames only, has had and continues to have an astonishing success.

PERSONAL NOTES:
Whoops! ... From an amphibious horse, I jumped on a wild one and tried to flash through Minkowski's "space-time" with the speed of light! ... Naturally, I saw nothing but a blur!
It took me a couple of pages to realize that I was observing things from the wrong frame of reference. When I jumped back into a less exotic vehicle (and remembered to bookmark the pages with the graphs so as to be able to follow the instructions more easily), everything became clear again and went on pretty smoothly. Though, to tell the truth, I needed an extra day or two to digest the concepts of the light-like, time-like and space-like event intervals properly.
And ... despite the convincing Mount Washington experiment, I still can't believe that the astronaut on the flight to Gliese 581 will come back younger than her/his sometime age-peers on Earth. What about the absolute event interval in this case? Well, let's go and read Chapter 7 and Part 2 of this interesting serial!


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Galloping with Light Einstein Relativity and Folklore Felix AlbaJuez Manuel TohariaCortés Jesús ZamoraBonilla 9781456373856 Books Reviews

This book is promoted as an explanation of Einsteinian relativity for non-scientists, or at least for those who want to understand the implications of relativity without dealing with the mathematics of Lorentz transformations and curvilinear coordinates.

First, I'm not sure that it's even possible for a layman to comprehend relativity from reading just one book. Several generations of trained scientists found it difficult-both before and after Einstein's 1905 paper- to work out the physical implications of relativity. Special and general relativity describe events which are significant only at spatial scales and speeds far beyond our everyday experience, and are detectable only with the aid of sophisticated measuring tools. That Einsteinian relativity is an accurate description of reality is unquestioned, but it is not easy to grasp its meaning.

In "Galloping with Light" the author's approach is to carefully dissect traditional concepts of space and time, and how their properties are defined and measured. To a scientist, repeatable measurements are the only way to verify and distinguish true from false theories. So to understand objective reality, you must also understand what the measurements are measuring, especially when we are measuring events with high precision at high speeds and tiny time intervals outside the realms of normal human experience.

Prof. Alba shows that it is very difficult to set up measurement systems that are objective, non-circular, and valid for both stationary and moving observers. This implies that statements about such things as 1) the simultaneity of two events, or 2) the measured length of a moving object, can contain assumptions that are unjustified. Some unjustified assumptions were inherent, and mostly unrecognized in Newtonian physics, until sophisticated measurements in the late 1800's showed that something was amiss.

This logical dissection of physical measurement is at the core of how Einstein conceived of relativity- by postulating that the speed of light is the same to all observers, regardless of their relative motion. The mathematical relationships (the Lorentz transformations) to convert measurements between different reference frames followed from this- the mathematics being necessary to quantify relativistic effects so that they could be verified by measurements, and tested for the consistency of internal logic that mathematical analysis provides.

In fact, many of the mathematical transformations were developed by others- before Einstein- but he is given primary credit for the step of recognizing the physical reality that was implied by constant light speed. It changed the very definitions of space and time, showing that they are really inter-dependent, hence "space-time".

"Galloping with Light" follows carefully reasoned, logical arguments to illustrate the consequences that a constant light speed has for actual measurements of distances and times- measurements being our only access to reality. It is evident that this author has thought this through very thoroughly, and he delineates what (and what not) relativity implies about our universe. It succeeds at being thorough and accurate, but I'm not sure it is (or ever can be) easy for a non-scientist. It is not only the mathematics of relativity that takes a lot of practice; so does thinking about the concepts of space, time, mass, energy, and measurement.

I liked the book, and appreciated the tenacity of the author in his efforts to explain. It is not a light read, nor a simple man's guide to modern physics, but he does what he said he would do; to explain relativity- coherently and accurately- with physical reasoning instead of complex mathematics. I recommend it to anyone who has a sincere desire to better understand the meaning of relativity. But you might need to read it twice.

.,
This Chapter is like a deLIGHTful jigsaw puzzle! To get a proper grasp of the Theory of Special Relativity, the reader has to fit together so many pieces of knowledge from Chapters 1-5, as well as the new ones from this Chapter. Fortunately, a variety of means of transport (a train, a car, a spaceship, all sorts of miraculous horses, ...) and thorough instructions, accompanied with excellently deployed signposts (i.e. diagrams and graphs), help the reader to get a wonderfully clear picture of
- the behavior of light (i.e. electromagnetic radiation) and the reasons for its limit speed,
- the difference between Minkowski's "space-time" and classical "space" and "time",
- the concept of the tetra-dimensional "event interval" (i.e. "space-time interval"),
- the classical vs. relativistic notions of Past, Present and Future,
- the role of Einstein's definition of the relativity of simultaneity in the interpretation of the relativistic contraction of space and dilation of time, wonderfully well-explained through illustrative examples with two lightning bolts, an optical clock, the first episode of a space-flight serial concerning the so-called "twins' paradox" (to be continued in Chapter 7) and the real case of cosmic radiation measured in the experiment on Mount Washington.

The above is, again, interwoven with the amazingly well weighed-out additional information and historical reviews
- a brief review of the principles of relativity throughout history, and the birth of the concept of the Principle of Special Relativity (Poincaré) ,
- the birth of Einstein's two postulates, i.e. the Principle of Special Relativity and the Principle of the Constant Velocity of Light in Vacuum,
- Einstein's interpretation of the Lorentz Transformation and Fitzgerald/Lorentz contraction of bodies and dilation of time,
- a brief explanation of other tetra-dimensional absolute magnitudes (momentum-energy, the electromagnetic field),
- an explanation why Special Relativity, even though it is strictly valid for Inertial Frames only, has had and continues to have an astonishing success.

PERSONAL NOTES
Whoops! ... From an amphibious horse, I jumped on a wild one and tried to flash through Minkowski's "space-time" with the speed of light! ... Naturally, I saw nothing but a blur!
It took me a couple of pages to realize that I was observing things from the wrong frame of reference. When I jumped back into a less exotic vehicle (and remembered to bookmark the pages with the graphs so as to be able to follow the instructions more easily), everything became clear again and went on pretty smoothly. Though, to tell the truth, I needed an extra day or two to digest the concepts of the light-like, time-like and space-like event intervals properly.
And ... despite the convincing Mount Washington experiment, I still can't believe that the astronaut on the flight to Gliese 581 will come back younger than her/his sometime age-peers on Earth. What about the absolute event interval in this case? Well, let's go and read Chapter 7 and Part 2 of this interesting serial!