It's about time: understanding Einstein's relativity

Table of Content: The principle of relativity Combining (small) velocities The speed of light Combining (any) velocities Simultaneous events; synchronized clocks Moving clocks run slowly; moving sticks shrink Looking at a moving clock The interval between events Trains of rockets Space-time geometry E = Mc² A bit about general relativity What makes it happen?

In It's About Time, N. David Mermin asserts that relativity ought to be an important part of everyone's education--after all, it is largely about time, a subject with which all are familiar. The book reveals that some of our most intuitive notions about time are shockingly wrong, and that the real nature of time discovered by Einstein can be rigorously explained without advanced mathematics. This readable exposition of the nature of time as addressed in Einstein's theory of relativity is accessible to anyone who remembers a little high school algebra and elementary plane geometry.