Physical Relativity: Space-time Structure from a Dynamical Perspective

by Harvey R. Brown

Overview

It is not widely known that Einstein had doubts, increasing with time, about the way he formulated his special theory of relativity in 1905. Physical Relativity examines the grounds of these doubts and related misgivings on the part of a handful of physicists and philosophers in the course of the twentieth century. Harvey Brown defends an interpretation of relativity theory, and hence of the nature of space and time, that combines Einstein's insights with those of his immediate precursors, who today are widely regarded as having had the right ideas for the wrong reasons. Appearing in the centennial year of Einstein's celebrated paper on special relativity, Physical Relativity is an unusual, critical examination of Einstein's thinking that will be of great interest to philosophers of physics, physicists, and historians of science.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199275830
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/02/2006
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	9.21(w) x 6.14(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Oxford University

Table of Contents

1. Overview2. The physics of coordinate transformations3. The relativity principle and the fable of Albert Keinstein4. The trailblazers5. Einstein's principle-theory route to the Lorentz transformations6. Variations on the Einstein theme7. Unconventional voices on special relativity8. What is special relativity? 9. The view from general relativityAppendicesA. Einstein on general covarianceB. Special relativity and quantum theory