Motion Mountain: The Adventure of Physics: Relativity (Volume 2)

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New, expanded 2017 edition - more than 200 000 readers. This is the second volume of the Motion Mountain physics text, covering special relativity, general relativity and cosmology. Travelling near the speed of light, the twin paradox, black holes, the big bang, the history of the universe, curved and wobbling space, gravitational waves, the jets of the Milky Way and many other captivating topics are treated in this volume. The text is written to be amazing and challenging on every page, with many figures and photographs, in an easy style, using little mathematics, and accessible to undergraduates, teachers and anybody who is interested in the precise description of nature. First, the volume introduces special relativity in a simple way, almost without formulae, combined with many many puzzles and observations of everyday life. The arguments and experiments for an invariant speed of light are presented, and the arguments that the speed of light is a limit. Time dilation, the twins paradox, length contraction, aberration, mass-energy equivalence and the existence of horizons are deduced and explored. The dawdling principle of special relativity is explained. Einstein is presented, with his main achievements. The text includes many puzzles, such as the relativistic circular train puzzle, and also explains how to prove the invariance of the speed of light just by looking at the sky. Then, the book introduces the general theory of relativity in the simplest way known so far. The arguments for an invariant maximum force and power are given, and also the arguments that they are limit values. Space curvature, Einstein's equations, black holes and gravity waves are deduced. The basics of modern cosmology are presented, together with many images of what is observed around the universe; it also tells about the incredible observation of the stars orbiting the centre of the Milky Way, presents the recent discovery of galactic bubbles, provides maps of the universe, tells about the various types of stars, and much more


Christoph Schiller


Cut Rita Zahara


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Motion Mountain The Adventure of Physics Vol II.pdf



Christoph Schiller, “Motion Mountain: The Adventure of Physics: Relativity (Volume 2),” Open Educational Resource (OER) , accessed January 28, 2022,

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