1.6: End of Chapter
REFERENCES
Introductory quote: Richard P. Feynman, The Character of Physical Law (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1967), page 127.
Quote from Minkowski in Section 1.5: H. A. Minkowski, "Space and Time," in H. A. Lorentz et al., The Principle of Relativity (Dover Publications, New York, 1952), page 75.
Quote at end of Section 1.5: "to make the bad difficult and the good easy," " rend le maldifficile et le bien facile ." Einstein, in a similar connection, in a letter to the architect Le Corbusier. Private communication from Le Corbusier.
For an appreciation of Albert Einstein, see John Archibald Wheeler, "Albert Einstein," in The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics , Timothy Ferris, ed. (Little, Brown, New York, 1991), pages 563-576.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many students in many classes have read through sequential versions of this text, shared with us their detailed difficulties, and given us advice. We asked students to write down comments, perplexities, and questions as they read and turn in these reading memos for personal response by the teacher. Italicized objections in the text come, in part, from these commentators. Both we who write and you who read are in their debt. Some readers not in classes have also been immensely helpful; among these we especially acknowledge Steven Bartlett. No one could have read the chapters more meticulously than Eric Sheldon, whose wide knowledge has enriched and clarified the presentation. William A. Shurcliff has been immensely inventive in devising new ways of viewing the consequences of relativity, a few of these are specifically acknowledged in later chapters. Electronic-mail courses using this text brought a flood of comments and reading memos from teachers and students around the world. Richard C. Smith originated, organized, and administered these courses, for which we are very grateful. The clarity and simplicity of both the English and the physics were improved by Penny Hull.Some passages in this text, both brief and extended, have been adapted from the book A Journey into Gravity and Spacetime by John Archibald Wheeler (W.H. Freeman, New York, 1990). In turn, certain passages in that book were adapted from earlier drafts of the present text. We have also used passages, logical arguments, and figures from the book Gravitation by Charles W. Misner, Kip S. Thorne, and John Archibald Wheeler (W. H. Freeman, New York, 1973).