Einstein Relatively Simple

Our Universe Revealed in Everyday Language

"Outstanding Academic Title for 2014" by CHOICE

Einstein Relatively Simple brings together for the first time an exceptionally clear explanation of both special and general relativity. It is for people who always wanted to understand Einstein's ideas but never thought they could.

Told with humor, enthusiasm, and rare clarity, this entertaining book reveals how a former high school drop-out revolutionized our understanding of space and time. From E=mc2 and everyday time travel to black holes and the big bang, Einstein Relatively Simple takes us all, regardless of our scientific backgrounds, on a mind-boggling journey through the depths of Einstein's universe. Along the way, we track Einstein through the perils and triumphs of his life — follow his thinking, his logic, and his insights — and chronicle the audacity, imagination, and sheer genius of the man recognized as the greatest scientist of the modern era.

In Part I on special relativity we learn how time slows and space shrinks with motion, and how mass and energy are equivalent. Part II on general relativity reveals a cosmos where black holes trap light and stop time, where wormholes form gravitational time machines, where space itself is continually expanding, and where some 13.7 billion years ago our universe was born in the ultimate cosmic event — the Big Bang.

Contents:

• Einstein Discovered: Special Relativity, E = mc2,and Spacetime:

  • From Unknown to Revolutionary
  • The Great Conflict
  • The Two Postulates
  • A New Reality
  • The Shrinking of Time
  • Simultaneity and the Squeezing of Space
  • The World's Most Famous Equation
  • Spacetime

• Einstein Revealed: General Relativity, Gravity, and the Cosmos:

  • Einstein's Dream
  • “The Happiest Thought of My Life”
  • The Warping of Space and Time
  • Stitching Spacetime
  • What is Spacetime Curvature?
  • Einstein's Masterpiece
  • The Universe Revealed
  • In the Beginning

Readership: Adults and young people all over the world who are curious about Einstein and how the universe works.
Key Features:

• Einstein Relatively Simple is the definitive book on Einstein's theories for the lay reader — one that is fun to read, comprehensive, and most important, understandable
• Einstein's ideas are explained in everyday language
• The book devotes eight chapters to special and a full eight chapters to general relativity. Most popular science books give general relativity only a brief mention or ignore it altogether