This textbook introduces the special theory of relativity at a level which is accessible to undergraduate students and even high school students with a strong foundation in algebra. The presentation emphasizes clean algebraic and geometrical methods, visualized with plenty of illustrations, resulting in a textbook that is modern and serious yet accessible. Replete with many solved exercises and copious spacetime diagrams, this book will help students develop relativistic intuition when encountering the subject for the first time. The emphasis on geometric methods, combined with the pedagogically appealing k-calculus approach, makes this book ideal for a self-contained course on special relativity or as supplementary reading for modern physics courses. It will also appeal to high schoolers with a strong math background who want to get ahead.

Autorentext

Yury Deshko holds a master's in theoretical physics (with a focus on general relativity) from Belarus State University and a doctorate in physics from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). His research at CUNY focused on experimental spectroscopy and diamond photonics. He served as a research associate at City College of New York until joining the semiconductor industry as a photonics engineer. Yury Deshko's pedagogical passion led him to teaching, for a number of years, the introduction into the special theory of relativity in summer schools of Johns Hopkins University and Columbia University.

Inhalt

Part 1: Relativity 1 Introduction 2 Geometry 3 Spacetime 4 Galilean Relativity 5 Special Relativity A 6 Special Relativity B 7 Special Relativity C