Relativity In our Time

"Relativity In our Time" is a book concerning the relevance of Einstein's theory to human relations in contemporary times. It is physics and it is philosophy. It is a discussion about one of the greatest of all pillars of 20th century thought and science.

Based on a seminar course for a mixture of science and humanities students, the approach and narrative style leads the reader towards the frontier of thinking in this far-reaching subject. Sachs deals with the whole spread of relativity, starting from the early history of Galileo and Faraday, he arrives at the foundation of the special theory.

There is a logical transition to the general theory while the last part of the book covers the mind-testing realms of unified field theory, Mach's principle and cosmology. The book begins with atomistic, deterministic, classical physics and goes on towards a view of continuous fields of matter and a clearer view of spacetime.

The reader is led into Einstein's extension of this theory towards a unified force field; consequently the authors address the issue of the validity of linear mathematics compared with the realism of a non-linear universe.

Such arguments today are leading towards a new paradigm in science - a study and description of nonlinear natural systems especially far from equilibrium systems; their energetics and dynamics.

This book should be of value to postgraduates, undergraduates, secondary students and professionals in physics and philosophy and anyone with an interest in science subjects.