[net.physics] Good books and discussion of relativity...

FISCHER@RUTGERS@sri-unix (11/24/82)

From: Ron <FISCHER at RUTGERS>
Personally I think the discussion is interesting.

Perhaps, however, what this list could do best is bring us up to date
on recent ideas since the publication of those "good books."  Some of
the folks on this list must be up to date in the literature.

As long as someone doesn't mind explaining, I don't mind reading.

How about keeping an eye out for some interesting "spinoff" topics?

(ron)
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gwyn@BRL@sri-unix (11/24/82)

From:     Doug Gwyn <gwyn@BRL>
One problem I have with many of the accepted "good books" is that I
disagree with their interpretation of some of the more philosophical
aspects of relativity theory.  Since I learned the subject by studying
the original works (Einstein, Eddington, Weyl, Schrodinger, etc.), I
suspect that these authors may also have had some disagreements with
current interpretations of their work.

Of course, one has to watch out when saying things like this.  I've seen
some well-known books say something like "We're SURE that this theory
would be acceptable to Einstein" when discussing a probabilistic (quantum)
theory, in spite of Einstein's repeated emphasis that such a theory was
NOT acceptable to him!