4 ms·
I’m not sure who the intended audience of this upcoming book is, but if it is laypeople, I feel as though the level of explanation is too advanced. Eg: > Just
by adriand 4y ago
I’m not sure who the intended audience of this upcoming book is, but if it is laypeople, I feel as though the level of explanation is too advanced. Eg:
> Just like a ball doesn’t change if you rotate one direction of space into another, Maxwell’s equations don’t change if you rotate one direction of space into time.
> So, Minkowski said, we just combine space with time to a 4 dimensional space-time, and then we can rotate space into time just like we can rotate two directions of space into each other. And that naturally explains why Maxwell’s equations have the symmetry they do have.
I have read, enjoyed, and understood a lot of popular physics books. But none of that makes a lick of sense to me. Either I’m dumber than I thought (probably), or I’m not the right audience, or this is a poor explanation.
- datavirtue 4y agoThe first two paragraphs of that pablum made me leave the post. The author sounded dumb as a rock.
- antiterra 4y agoI’m curious, why did the author sound dumb? What percentage of the population do you think is likely ‘dumb’ by your standards?
- conradev 4y agoI enjoyed this book, which had a much more thorough explanation of Minkowski spacetime: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691165714/philosophy-of-physics https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691165714/ph... It takes a bit of time with spacetime diagrams to become more familiar with it