What Is Relativity?

"An excellent introduction to complicated but fascinating subject." — Booklist. This compelling book offers readers with no technical expertise beyond arithmetic an enlightening tour of the paradoxes inherent in the special theory of relativity, guided by a pair of eminent theoretical physicists. Novel Prize physicist L. D. Landau and his distinguished colleague G. B. Rumer, employ a simple and straightforward manner to illuminate relativity theory's more subtle and elusive aspects. Using such familiar objects as trains, rulers, and clocks, the authors explain the reasoning behind seemingly self-contradictory ideas in which the relative seems absolute, but the absolute proves to be relative. A series of playful cartoons highlights the authors' witty observations on the laws governing inertia, the speed of light, the relationship of work and mass, and other relativistic concepts. "The exposition is masterful . . . a superb book." — New York Times Book Review.