In 1905 Einstein introduced his Special Theory of Relativity (STR). The rumours I heard when I was about 16 years old were that only he and a few other extremely intelligent scientists would be able to understand this theory. A turning point in the history of physics, not only because of this supposed sublime theory, but even more because of the abandonment of the phenomenon ‘ether’. Until that turning point in history no physicist ever thought about the possibility that this phenomenon w...

The main subject of this book is a purely mathematical model of physical reality. The book acts as a survey of the Hilbert Book Model Project. The project concerns a well-founded, purely mathematical model of physical reality. The project relies on the conviction that physical reality owns its own kind of mathematics and that this mathematics guides and restricts the extension of the foundation to more complicated levels of the structure and the behavior of physical reality. This results in a...

More than a century ago, Einstein made the theory of relativity workable by assuming the constant speed of light, he showed that time passes more slowly in a moving system. But another of his conclusions that a moving object must shrink in the direction of motion remained a matter of debate.

To examine the latter conclusion the author very precisely followed Einsteins line of thought and he found that this conclusion was the result of an incorrect physical insight. The inevitable outcome of t...

Changes and additions to the new edition of this classic textbook include a new chapter on symmetries, new problems and examples, improved explanations, more numerical problems to be worked on a computer, new applications to solid state physics, and consolidated treatment of time-dependent potentials.