This might be better for IMHO, but since there are objective criteria to judge the book on I thought I would put it here.
So, what is the best book for a layman to read to get an understanding of Special Relativity?
I have been considering either:
Space and Time in Special Relativity by N. David Mermin
or
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity by Max Born
But since I am not an expert I thought I would ask everyone her what they thought.
While not specifically about SR, I found the first few chapters of Brian Greene’s “The Elegant Universe” to be among the clearest explainations about SR that I have encoutered.
Special Relativity isn’t that difficult to understand, to tell the truth I don’t think an explanation from an introductory text book on the theory of relativity would be to difficult for someone with a high school physics eductaion to understand.
That said I agree with Shalmanese, Brian Greene’s explanation is very goodn (I bought the book cheaply from a second-hand shop yesterday and it’s actually about superstring theory).
I haven’t read the Born book. Nor do I suppose I counted as a layman when I read Mermin’s, but I can vouch that Space and Time in Special Relativity is an accurate and through attempt at such an introduction.
It does assume a shade more background knowledge of mathematics than is normal in such books: Mermin’s own assessment is “elementary algebra, plane geometry, and (occasionally) triginometry.” On the other hand, as a step up from simple popularisations, there are nice discussions of things like the “barn and pole”, which are fun to get your head round.
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How about an online source?
Any good website on the subject?
I’ve got good maths skills, but I’m not willing to tackle equations longer than this sentence.
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Ah, I knew I had this somewhere: Relativity explained with no words over 4 letters long