
Einstein for Everyone  - urbannomad
http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/index.html
======
palish
I'd encourage everyone to read Einstein's book on relativity:
[http://dl.dropbox.com/u/315/books/Albert%20Einstein/Albert%2...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/315/books/Albert%20Einstein/Albert%20Einstein%20-%20Relativity.pdf)

His writing style is beautifully simple and the content is therefore easy for
anyone to read and understand.

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SandB0x
My favourite book on special relativity is _Spacetime Physics_ by Taylor and
Wheeler. It's intuitive, clearly written and well laid out, with an Edward
Tufte style column of text running along the main body that stops you getting
lost in the equations.

Some parts of the first edition are available online:
<http://www.eftaylor.com/special.html>
<http://www.eftaylor.com/pub/spacetime/STP1stEdThruP20.pdf>

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aik
From the "Completeness of Quantum Theory" chapter (on one theory of the
determinability of quantum systems): "If an atom has a probability of one half
of radioactive decay over an hour, then all that really means is that its wave
function describes an ensemble of many different atomic systems, half of which
decay in an hour. Whether one particular atom in the ensemble will decay in
one hour is definitely determinable. However we will not be able to discern it
if all we know is the quantum wave associated with it. Whether it decays or
not depends upon properties of that system that have been smoothed away by the
quantum wave and thus are unknown to us. It is our ignorance of these smoothed
away properties that makes a probabilistic assertion the best we can do."

HN, what does "Whether it decays or not depends upon properties of that system
that have been smoothed away by the quantum wave" mean?! What properties
exactly, and smoothed away how? Just by the fact that observing the system
causes a change within the system and therefore changes the quantum waves?

~~~
mechanical_fish
I was quite confused by this statement, because it just looks wrong. Upon
consulting the text you are citing, I figured out why: This is the author's
summary of Einstein's position on the determinability of quantum systems, and
Einstein _was_ wrong, famously wrong. This statement is about how Einstein
thought the world worked, not about how the world actually works.

This statement you quote has often been called by the jargon name "hidden
variables theory". You're asking: What are these hidden variables? Well,
Einstein could never find them, and later work has shown that this is because
they don't exist. Read the end of the chapter first. ;)

Incidentally, at first glance this chapter doesn't look like light reading.

~~~
othermaciej
Technically, the only thing that is known not to exist is _local_ hidden
variables. There are non-local hidden variable theories which are consistent
with all known experiments. Unfortunately, they are also not distinguishable
by experiment from more mainstream interpretations of QM.

Here is an example of a non-local hidden variable theory:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_interpretation>

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tel
While this looks like a very fascinating book/course, does anyone have a
recommendation for learning general relativity rapidly in a way that abuses
mathematical knowledge? I want to brush up on tensor math and variational
calculus and use it as a motivating core topic.

I'm looking for the tersest complete guide from Newtonian physics to GR.
Single author would be best, but I imagine it's not possible.

~~~
tel
Reddit's r/AskScience recommended MTW's Gravitation[1], Wald's General
Relativity[2], and, to begin, Sean Carroll's GR lecture notes[3].

Shameless affiliate links:

[1]
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0716703440/ref=as_li_qf_sp_...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0716703440/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=sdbo07-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=0716703440)

[2]
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[3] <http://preposterousuniverse.com/grnotes/>

~~~
bermanoid
I second these recs: all three are _fantastic_ sources. MTW is very imposing
(the damn thing must weigh twenty pounds), but don't be threatened, it is a
crystal clear exposition that you really should not miss.

I'm not quite sure, though, if tel was asking for full mathematical
developments of the theory (in which case the combo of MTW and Wald are, IMO,
indisputable must haves), or something that just gets to the point quickly,
assuming that you don't need help on the math.

In any case, anyone and everyone should also read Penrose's Road To Reality
(my own shameless affiliate link: <http://amzn.com/0679776311?tag=gubbins-20>)
for a very different take on...well, pretty much everything. The book is a
complete failure at its stated goal of making mathematical physics accessible
for a lay audience (I suspect when you're as smart as Penrose it's hard to
figure out what an average Joe is capable of grokking...), but as a casual and
wildly different sweep through a lot of interesting topics for someone that
already knows math, it's fantastic.

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reledi
I thought I was viewing a PDF at first, the style is so neat. Does anyone know
if it was converted from LaTeX to HTML?

~~~
Scaevolus
According to a meta tag, it was generated by Amaya-- <http://www.w3.org/Amaya>

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mbateman
John Norton (the author) is an amazing historian and philosopher of science.
People might be interested in some of the other "goodies" on his website --
<http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/Goodies/> \-- and perhaps some of his papers as
well.

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elptacek
If you like this, you will also like this:

[http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-World-Physics-
Everyone/dp/0674...](http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-World-Physics-
Everyone/dp/067401832X)

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meow
I was looking for something like this for ever.

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8worm
Bookmarked! I loved it.

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autalpha
Bookmarked... will read later. Thank you for a great find :)

