The Adventure of Physics - Vol. II: Relativity

Reviewed by Thomas Bolland, lecturer, The Ohio State University on 6/10/15

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

It covers special and general relativity with a detailed index.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

His treatment of general relativity centers around his view that there is a maximum force (in the same way that special relativity centers around there being a limiting speed) which he has published, but as far as I can tell this is not at all widely accepted by relativists. For this reason I will rate the accuracy with a 3.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

It is certainly up-to-date in that it reports very recent results. The author's certainties are woven into the text in such a way that the book will be quite difficult to rewrite. Thus it is hard to rate relevance/longevity; I'll give it a 4 because of the appearance of latest observations and measurements.

Clarity rating: 5

It is clearly written, easy to read from a language standpoint; there are a few places where his English is non-native.

Consistency rating: 5

Definitely consistent!

Modularity rating: 2

I do not think it is very modular. Also it very frequently refers to other volumes in the series, as being needed for an understanding of the material in this volume.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 2

It does not lead in an understandable, step-by-step way, from ignorance to comprehension. I think however that the author believes his treatment does do this. I expect students would be frustrated. If you already know relativity you can follow what he is saying.

Interface rating: 5

Very good! The graphs, photographs etc. are excellent.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

Impeccable.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

No offensivity of this kind.

Comments

This book cannot be used for teaching a course. I may pick some stories, facts, or examples from it when I teach relativity but I cannot imagine a course for which this would be a text. If you already know relativity it's quite a bit of fun to read and you *can* learn from it, but you need to have a sufficient base in the subject to avoid getting swept away by the author's views.

Reviewed by Michael Zudov, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota on 6/10/15

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

The book covers a lot of material, well beyond what is usually found in a typical undergraduate text. However, as the preface states “This book is not written with exams in mind” and, to me, this implies that it is not suitable (or even intended) as the main textbook for the relativity course, at least in U.S. institutions. However, the book can be used as a supplementary text, as it covers many interesting aspects of relativity which are not usually found in a typical college text.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

I admit that I did not read the whole book, but what I have read seems to be accurate, with few exceptions. Some of the discussions are somewhat ambiguous and can be confusing to the reader, see point 9 below.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The material seems to be up to date and I do not see that its critical parts it will become obsolete any time soon. Any necessary updates can indeed be added at any point.

Clarity rating: 3

For an undergraduate who knows nothing about relativity, the text might be difficult to follow at times, as the definitions are not always given before the term is used. Figure captions are often not comprehensive and do not contain necessary description. I see a lot of room for improvement here and would prefer figure captions, which are self-contained so the reader does not have to search for the relevant part of the text just to understand what the figure is showing. For example: “FIGURE 23: A space-time diagram for a moving object T seen from an inertial observer O” – But where is the observer O? There are also some repetitions in the text which are not always necessary. Finally, I have noticed that some concepts are discussed in depth several times, but others, e.g. a space-time diagram, are not well explained.

Consistency rating: 4

The text is fairly consistent in terms of terminology, however, I noticed that “ T” is used to denote both kinetic energy and temperature.

Modularity rating: 3

Since the book is quite different from standard college texts, the modularity is somewhat special. Typical textbooks on special relativity usually have dedicated sections on topics like “Time dilation”, “Lorentz transformation”, etc. While these and other concepts are indeed present in the book, they are not always easy to find using the “Contents” section.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 2

As mentioned above, sometimes the definitions are given after the term, e.g. “event”, has been already used in the discussion. Again, this is not a typical textbook, but some readers might still have problems.

Interface rating: 5

The interface seems to be excellent and the text is easy to navigate. However, some hyperlinks point to other volumes in the series and I can see that some readers might find this a bit annoying. However, once other volumes are downloaded, everything works great.

Grammatical Errors rating: 3

The text is definitely readable and understandable, but there are typos and ambiguities here and there, which can confuse the reader: on page 9: “intuitive and way of learning”; on page 74: “the energy difference is emitted as energy.”, on page 75: "If the motion between two events is slower than the speed of light…”; on page 76: "an body", etc. Running a spell checker should have fixed most of these.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

I did not find the text culturally, racially, or sexually offensive, but it seems to show a bit of German character.

Comments

In summary, I have reservations using it as the main one but the book is very good as a supplementary text in the relativity course. It will particularly be useful for students who want to learn a bit more about the relativity than the traditional textbook has to offer. In addition, the book should be useful for teachers looking to enrich their lectures as it offers quite a few interesting examples as well as historical facts.