One of my books is “Einstein Explained: Special & General Relativity for the Masses” (physics pun intended). Yes, it’s pop-sci (“for the masses”), but I believe we convey accurate information. I really feel everyone should understand something about the nature of time, gravity and light; of course this requires passing on at least some introductory knowledge of special and general relativity. Here’s a link to the Amazon copy:
We tried to make it unique with Nietzsche-quoting dog illustrations that were supposed to be sort of like New Yorker (TM) cartoons. I don’t think the book shows any expertise, but your advice to me was to go out and “learn foundations of physics,” and I think the book demonstrates that I have at least some familiarity w/ foundations of physics.
Also, I don’t know that I have a “quest.” However, I think my goals are clearer in the post that linked back to this one. It’s at
Thank you for the link! I’ve looked through the Amazon preview, nice illustrations, and the desire to make unintuitive concepts feel intuitive definitely comes through. There are some misleading statements in that part (let’s ignore acceleration!) whereas acceleration is the most essential part for the resolution of the twin “paradox”, but maybe it gets addressed later.
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, excellent point about acceleration. In the current version, we actually don’t ever address the twin “paradox,” let alone how acceleration resolves it.
In a draft version of the book, we had addressed the twin paradox, but we got feedback that the book was way too long. There are other topics we had to cut out as well, which makes me a little disappointed in the final product. The original version was over 600 pages, and that was admittedly too long, but I feel like we went way too far in the other direction. Granted, it will be a first introduction to special and general relativity for most readers, but I know the twin paradox is going to keep them up at night, and I really wish we had addressed it.
Anyway, thanks for looking at the book, and for offering the feedback!
One of my books is “Einstein Explained: Special & General Relativity for the Masses” (physics pun intended). Yes, it’s pop-sci (“for the masses”), but I believe we convey accurate information. I really feel everyone should understand something about the nature of time, gravity and light; of course this requires passing on at least some introductory knowledge of special and general relativity. Here’s a link to the Amazon copy:
www.amazon.com/dp/B0B8ZGQ8RB
We tried to make it unique with Nietzsche-quoting dog illustrations that were supposed to be sort of like New Yorker (TM) cartoons. I don’t think the book shows any expertise, but your advice to me was to go out and “learn foundations of physics,” and I think the book demonstrates that I have at least some familiarity w/ foundations of physics.
Also, I don’t know that I have a “quest.” However, I think my goals are clearer in the post that linked back to this one. It’s at
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NaBfa3cYr8mk55PvT/philosophical-physics-discussion-follow-up
I could have just left it at that, but the dangling loose end of this thread was bothering me, which is why I addressed it here.
Thank you for the link! I’ve looked through the Amazon preview, nice illustrations, and the desire to make unintuitive concepts feel intuitive definitely comes through. There are some misleading statements in that part (let’s ignore acceleration!) whereas acceleration is the most essential part for the resolution of the twin “paradox”, but maybe it gets addressed later.
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, excellent point about acceleration. In the current version, we actually don’t ever address the twin “paradox,” let alone how acceleration resolves it.
In a draft version of the book, we had addressed the twin paradox, but we got feedback that the book was way too long. There are other topics we had to cut out as well, which makes me a little disappointed in the final product. The original version was over 600 pages, and that was admittedly too long, but I feel like we went way too far in the other direction. Granted, it will be a first introduction to special and general relativity for most readers, but I know the twin paradox is going to keep them up at night, and I really wish we had addressed it.
Anyway, thanks for looking at the book, and for offering the feedback!