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Further Reading on Special Relativity
During the creation of Warp, I referred to many books. Special relativity is widely covered, with hundreds of books on the subject - it would be impossible to read them all! Of the ones I've had a look at, the ones I found most useful are reviewed below. I hope you find them useful.
Spacetime Physics by Edwin Taylor and John A. Wheeler
A good text for starters. This is not an advanced text, and it does not use advanced maths (although you do need some elementary calculus). The concepts of special relativity are clearly presented along with some excellent examples and exercises. Highly recommended.
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Personnally, I prefer the above book, but some people swear by this one. The book covers the relativistic expressions for mass, momentum and energy of particles. Later chapters cover the Lorentz transformations, kinematics and dynamics according to special relativity.
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This book should be used as a supplement by those who are studying physics at undergraduate level. The book generally tries to avoid equations in favour of considering the models of physics. Good if you have studied physics but can't get you head around the maths.
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This book is excellent! However, it is more for those with a keen interest than those studying physics. This is a non-mathematical book covering special and general relativity in a concise, interesting and entertaining way. It's fascinating to learn that relativity has implications for everything from satellite navigation to black holes. Great stuff!
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Now here is something for real maths brains. Really, this book is so heavy with advanced maths that it is truely scary. If you want a really in depth knowledge of relativity then this is the book for you. However, DO NOT, under and circumstances, expect to get anything out of this book unless you hold an advanced physics or mathematics degree. If this doesn't worry you, and you want to see relativity in all it's tensor glory, then this is the book for you. Einstein would be proud.
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