Special Relativity and Motion Faster than Light: A Beginner's Guide

From Book News, Inc.
Fayngold (physics, New Jersey Institute of Technology) examines numerous special relativity topics with an intuitive approach accessible to undergraduate students and those with minimal physics background. Yet the playful explanations and illustrations, and chapter titles such as "What is horizontal" and "Weirdness of light" are balanced by rigorous analytical and mathematical treatments provided for more advanced students or college professors teaching physics. With the goal of supplementing ordinary special relativity textbooks, the author treats seemingly paradoxical aspects of the subject, filling gaps in conventional coverage and including such topics as faster-than-light phenomena, recent experiments in superluminal propagation of light pulses and relativistic dynamics, and accelerated motions.Copyright © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR


D. Green, The New School University, NY
"... supplementary reading material to the standard texts, that expands on the concepts without getting hyper-specialized"


S. Piatek, New Jersey Inst. of Techn.
"... the physics community will enthusiastically receive this book and [...] it will be widely adopted by physics and engineering teachers as a complementary textbook."


Book Description
While the theory of special relativity is often associated with the idea of traveling faster than light, this book shows that in all these cases subtle forces of nature conspire to prevent these motions being harnessed to send signals faster than the speed of light.
The author tackles these topics both conceptually, with minimal or no mathematics, and quantitatively, making use of numerous illustrations to clarify the discussion. The result is a joy to read for both scientists familiar with the subject and laypeople wishing to understand something of special relativity.



Book Info
In this work, author brings together a self-consistent collection of topics in special relativity, providing readers with interesting material for further study and impulses for future ideas. Softcover.


About the Author
Moses Fayngold is Special Lecturer at the Physics Department of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where he is also involved in the research activities of the Multi-Disciplinary Optical Science and Engineering Program. He has been lecturing for some 20 years on special relativity, both to non-specialized audiences in public planetariums as well as to undergraduate and graduate students.


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Fayngold (physics, New Jersey Institute of Technology) examines numerous special relativity topics with an intuitive approach accessible to undergraduate students and those with minimal physics background. Yet the playful explanations and illustrations, and chapter titles such as "What is horizontal" and "Weirdness of light" are balanced by rigorous analytical and mathematical treatments provided for more advanced students or college professors teaching physics. With the goal of supplementing ordinary special relativity textbooks, the author treats seemingly paradoxical aspects of the subject, filling gaps in conventional coverage and including such topics as faster-than-light phenomena, recent experiments in superluminal propagation of light pulses and relativistic dynamics, and accelerated motions. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR


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