The Einsteinian Era

This book has its origin in a one-year course for non-science majors that Professor Firk taught at Yale throughout the decade of the 1970's. It is intended for the inquisitive reader who wishes to gain an understanding of the immortal work of Einstein, the greatest scientist since Newton. Special Relativity deals with measurements of space, time and motion in inertial (non-accelerating) frames of reference. A popular account of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, a theory of space, time, and motion in the presence of gravity, is given. The contents include: 1. Understanding the physical universe 2. Describing everyday motion; relative motion, Newton's Principle of Relativity, problems with light, 3. Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity simultaneity and synchronizing clocks, length contraction and time dilation, examples of Einstein's world, 4. Newtonian and Einsteinian mass 5. Equivalence of energy and mass, E = mc2 6. Principle of Equivalence 7. Einsteinian gravity; gravity and the bending of light, gravity and the flow of time, and red shifts, blue shifts, and black holes.