1st Edition

The Special Theory of Relativity

By David Bohm Copyright 2007
    304 Pages
    by Routledge

    304 Pages
    by Routledge

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    In these inspiring lectures David Bohm explores Albert Einstein’s celebrated Theory of Relativity that transformed forever the way we think about time and space. Yet for Bohm the implications of the theory were far more revolutionary both in scope and impact even than this. Stepping back from dense theoretical and scientific detail in this eye-opening work, Bohm describes how the notion of relativity strikes at the heart of our very conception of the universe, regardless of whether we are physicists or philosophers.

    1. Introduction  2. Pre-Einsteinian Notions of Relativity  3. The Problem of the Relativity of the Laws of Electrodynamics  4. The Michelson-Morley Experiment  5. Efforts to Save the Ether Hypothesis  6. The Lorentz Theory of the Electron  7. Further Development of the Lorentz Theory  8. The Problem of Measuring Simultaneity in the Lorentz Theory  9. The Lorentz Transformation  10. The Inherent Ambiguity in the Meanings of Space-Time Measurements, According to the Lorentz Theory  11. Analysis of Space and Time Concepts in Terms of Frames of Reference  12. "Common Sense" Concepts of Space and Time  13. Introduction to Einstein's Conceptions of Space and Time  14. The Lorentz Transformation in Einstein's Point of View  15. Addition of Velocities  16. The Principle of Relativity  17. Some Applications of Relativity  18. Momentum and Mass in Relativity  19. The Equivalence of Mass and Energy  20. The Relativistic Transformation Law for Energy and Momentum  21. Charged Particles in an Electromagnetic Field  22. Experimental Evidence for Special Relativity  23. More About the Equivalence of Mass and Energy  24. Towards a New Theory of Elementary Particles  25. The Falsification of Theories  26. The Minkowski Diagram and the K Calculus  27. The Geometry of Events and the Space-Time Continuum  28. The Questions of Causality and the Maximum Speed of Propagation of Signals in Relativity Theory  29. Proper Time  30. The "Paradox" of the Twins  31. The Significance of the Minkowski Diagram as a Reconstruction of the Past.  Appendix - Physics and Perception

    Biography

    David Bohm (1917–1992). A close colleague of Einstein’s at Princeton University after World War II, Bohm would himself go on to become one of the great physicists of the twentieth century. Persecuted for his radical politics during the era of the McCarthy hearings, he left the US in 1952 to teach first in Brazil and then in the UK.

    Popular Science/Physics/Philosophy

    'Bohm presents a highly original view of what it means to look at the world with new eyes.' – Journal of Consciousness Studies