Einstein's Relativity: The Special Theory and the General Theory - Chapter 2: Einstein's Relativity - Single Chapter Edition: The Special Theory and the General Theory, #2

Einstein’s Relativity: The Special Theory and the General Theory - Chapter 2

New Modern Translation 2024-2025

Albert Einstein & Harry Yoon (Translator)

2024-10-08

Table of contents

Introduction - Chapter 2

Original Preface by Einstein

2 The Frame of Reference

Translator’s Notes

Appendix A — Thought Experiments (G)

Appendix B — Symmetries (N)

Appendix C — The Coordinate System (N)

Appendix D — Coordinate Transforms (N)

Comments on the Single Chapter Edition Series

The Einstein’s Books Project

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Title Page

Table of Contents

Introduction - Chapter 2

Relativity: The Special and the General Theory (A Popular Exposition) was the first book, and in fact the only book, by Albert Einstein specifically written for the popular, non-physicist, audience on the physics of relativity.

This book is not, however, for the faint of heart. It goes through some of the most essential ideas of both special and general relativity, and it touches on many fundamental concepts, which you cannot find in most textbooks on relativity. Although mathematics is kept at minimum, it is, in many ways, a more difficult book than those that they use in college physics classes.

If you are genuinely interested in understanding relativity, at a high-level, and yet paradoxically at a deeper level at the same time, rather than, say, just learning how to calculate time dilation and length contraction using the Lorentz-Einstein transformation equations, and what not, then we highly recommend this book written by Einstein himself, which is full of great insights (if you can spot them).

However, we are by no means trying to discourage any casual readers from reading this book who want to just get something out of this book by quickly going through it (or, to get as much as possible in the limited time they have). In fact, that would be a great way to get exposed to relativity, using Einstein’s book.

But, these books in this single chapter edition series are specifically created for the people who want a deeper understanding of the special theory as well as the general theory of relativity, without having to learn difficult high-level mathematics. To those people, we recommend to read the Einstein’s preface first, if you haven’t already done so, which is included in the beginning of all single chapter booklets. Understanding relativity, truly understanding relativity, requires patience and some time and effort, regardless of your background.

This is the second installment of the series, and it includes Chapter 2, and only Chapter 2, from the book, Einstein’s Relativity: The Special Theory and the General Theory (New Modern Translation 2024).

The title of this chapter (or, section, as the book was organized in the original German edition) was The System of Coordinates. We changed it to The Frame of Reference since this term is more commonly used in modern physics. (These two terms are more or less interchangeably used, however, depending on the contexts.) Likewise, in general, we took a liberty to do liberal translations throughout the book rather than following the original German text too literally. For anybody who prefers more literal translations, the official 1920 translation (with some revisions) is available in public domain for free.