From the reviews: "This attractive book provides an account of the theory of special relativity from a geometrical viewpoint, explaining the unification and insights that are given by such a treatment. [...] Can be read with profit by all who have taken a first course in relativity physics." ASLIB Book Guide

The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Physics is a comprehensive and authoritative guide to the state of the art in the philosophy of physics. It comprisess 54 self-contained chapters written by leading philosophers of physics at both senior and junior levels, making it the most thorough and detailed volume of its type on the market – nearly every major perspective in the field is represented. The Companion’s 54 chapters are organized into 12 parts. The first seven parts cover all of the major physical theories investigated by philosophers of physics today, and the last five explore key themes that unite the study of these theories. I. Newtonian Mechanics II. Special Relativity III. General Relativity IV. Non-Relativistic Quantum Theory V. Quantum Field Theory VI. Quantum Gravity VII. Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics VIII. Explanation IX. Intertheoretic Relations X. Symmetries XI. Metaphysics XII. Cosmology The difficulty level of the chapters has been carefully pitched so as to offer both accessible summaries for those new to philosophy of physics and standard reference points for active researchers on the front lines. An introductory chapter by the editors maps out the field, and each part also begins with a short summary that places the individual chapters in context. The volume will be indispensable to any serious student or scholar of philosophy of physics.

This book focuses on the unifying power of the geometrical language in bringing together concepts from many different areas of physics, ranging from classical physics to the theories describing the four fundamental interactions of Nature -- gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear. The book provides in a single volume a thorough introduction to topology and differential geometry, as well as many applications to both mathematical and physical problems. It is aimed as an elementary text and is intended for first year graduate students. In addition to the traditional contents of books on special and general relativities, this book discusses also some recent advances such as de Sitter invariant special relativity, teleparallel gravity and their implications in cosmology for those wishing to reach a higher level of understanding.

There are very few concepts that fascinate equally a theoretical physicist studying black holes and a patient undergoing seriolls mental psychosis. Time, undoubtedly, can well be ranked among them. For the measure of time inside a black hole is no less bizarre than the perception of time by a schizophrenic, who may perceive it as completely "suspended," "standing still," or even "reversing its direction. " The nature of time is certainly shrouded in profound mystery. This, perhaps, since the concept entails multifarious, and occasionally incongruous, facets. No wonder the subject attracts the serious attention of scholars on the one hand, and of the lay public on the other. Our Advanced Research Workshop is an excellent il lustration of this point, as the reader will soon discover. It turned out to be a unique professional forum for an unusually lively, effective and fruitful exchange of ideas and beliefs among 48 participants from 20 countries worldwide, selected out of more than a hundred applicants. The present book is based on the select talks presented at the meeting, and aims to provide the interested layperson and specialist alike with a multidisciplinary sampling of the most up-to-date scholarly research on the nature of time. It represents a coherent, state-of-the-art volume showing that research relevant to this topic is necessarily interdisciplinary and does not ignore such delicate issues as "altered" states of consciousness, religion and metaphysics.

The main focus of this volume is the question: is spacetime nothing more than a mathematical space (which describes the evolution in time of the ordinary three-dimensional world) or is it a mathematical model of a real four-dimensional world with time entirely given as the fourth dimension? The book contains fourteen invited papers which either directly address the main question of the nature of spacetime or explore issues related to it.

Combining research methods from various areas of mathematics and physics, Probabilistic Models of Cosmic Backgrounds describes the isotropic random sections of certain fibre bundles and their applications to creating rigorous mathematical models of both discovered and hypothetical cosmic backgrounds. Previously scattered and hard-to-find mathematical and physical theories have been assembled from numerous textbooks, monographs, and research papers, and explained from different or even unexpected points of view. This consists of both classical and newly discovered results necessary for understanding a sophisticated problem of modelling cosmic backgrounds. The book contains a comprehensive description of mathematical and physical aspects of cosmic backgrounds with a clear focus on examples and explicit calculations. Its reader will bridge the gap of misunderstanding between the specialists in various theoretical and applied areas who speak different scientific languages. The audience of the book consists of scholars, students, and professional researchers. A scholar will find basic material for starting their own research. A student will use the book as supplementary material for various courses and modules. A professional mathematician will find a description of several physical phenomena at the rigorous mathematical level. A professional physicist will discover mathematical foundations for well-known physical theories.

This volumes provides a comprehensive review of interactions between differential geometry and theoretical physics, contributed by many leading scholars in these fields. The contributions promise to play an important role in promoting the developments in these exciting areas. Besides the plenary talks, the coverage includes: models and related topics in statistical physics; quantum fields, strings and M-theory; Yang-Mills fields, knot theory and related topics; K-theory, including index theory and non-commutative geometry; mirror symmetry, conformal and topological quantum field theory; development of integrable systems; and random matrix theory.

In recent years the methods of modern differential geometry have become of considerable importance in theoretical physics and have found application in relativity and cosmology, high-energy physics and field theory, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics and mechanics. This textbook provides an introduction to these methods - in particular Lie derivatives, Lie groups and differential forms - and covers their extensive applications to theoretical physics. The reader is assumed to have some familiarity with advanced calculus, linear algebra and a little elementary operator theory. The advanced physics undergraduate should therefore find the presentation quite accessible. This account will prove valuable for those with backgrounds in physics and applied mathematics who desire an introduction to the subject. Having studied the book, the reader will be able to comprehend research papers that use this mathematics and follow more advanced pure-mathematical expositions.

Branes are solitonic configurations of a string theory that are represented by extended objects in a higher-dimensional space-time. They are essential for a comprehension of the non-perturbative aspects of string theory, in particular, in connection with string dualities. From the mathematical viewpoint, branes are related to several important theo

This book provides advanced undergraduate physics and mathematics students with an accessible yet detailed understanding of the fundamentals of differential geometry and symmetries in classical physics. Readers, working through the book, will obtain a thorough understanding of symmetry principles and their application in mechanics, field theory, and general relativity, and in addition acquire the necessary calculational skills to tackle more sophisticated questions in theoretical physics. Most of the topics covered in this book have previously only been scattered across many different sources of literature, therefore this is the first book to coherently present this treatment of topics in one comprehensive volume. Key features: Contains a modern, streamlined presentation of classical topics, which are normally taught separately Includes several advanced topics, such as the Belinfante energy-momentum tensor, the Weyl-Schouten theorem, the derivation of Noether currents for diffeomorphisms, and the definition of conserved integrals in general relativity Focuses on the clear presentation of the mathematical notions and calculational technique