Relativity Made Relatively Easy: Volume 1 - Softcover

I would commend the present text highly to those who want a physics-oriented rather than a mathematics-oriented treatment, written in a studentfriendly style without compromising the content or accuracy, and with a very good coverage of special relativity ... I am sure that this bookwill find a deserved place in the undergraduate physics courses, as well as suiting the needs of post-graduate students in coming to grips with the more advanced subject-matter. (Peter J. Bussey, Contemporary Physics)

Relativity Made Relatively Easy presents an extensive study of Special Relativity and a gentle (but exact) introduction to General Relativity for undergraduate students of physics. Assuming almost no prior knowledge, it allows the student to handle all the Relativity needed for a university course, with explanations as simple, thorough, and engaging as possible.

The aim is to make manageable what would otherwise be regarded as hard; to make derivations as simple as possible and physical ideas as transparent as possible. Lorentz invariants and four-vectors are introduced early on, but tensor notation is postponed until needed. In addition to the more basic ideas such as Doppler effect and collisions, the text introduces more advanced material such as radiation from accelerating charges, Lagrangian methods, the stress-energy tensor, and introductory General Relativity, including Gaussian curvature, the Schwarzschild solution, gravitational lensing, and black holes. A second volume will extend the treatment of General Relativity somewhat more thoroughly, and also introduce Cosmology, spinors, and some field theory.