[Phys-L] at home in four dimensions

[John Denker <jsd@AV8N.COM>]

In the context of:

> > >  2) ... there is the approach we might call
> > > "feeling at home in four dimensions".  This emphasizes that four-vectors
> > > are almost like three-vectors, boosts are almost like rotations, rapidity is
> > > almost like an angle, et cetera.  It makes heavy use of spacetime diagrams.

On Sep 9, 2005, at 3:44 PM, David T. Marx asked:

> >  Is there a book you might recommend for the introductory
> >  level or even general ed. level that presents SR using approach #2?

Aaron Titus answered:
> _Spacetime Physics_ by Taylor and Wheeler.

What I'm wondering is whether there are other answers to DTM's question,
and if not many others, why not?

Does anybody know of intro-level texts other than Taylor and Wheeler that
emphasize approach "#2" as described above, and de-emphasize time dilation
and the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction?

This seems pretty mysterious to me.  I've never heard anything but the
highest praise for Taylor and Wheeler.  It's been called the gold standard,
"the" book on special relativity.  It is written at an introductory level,
requiring nothing more than algebra and a little bit of trigonometry.  It
has been in print for more than forty years.

So a follow-on question is, what went wrong?  Why has T&W not been more
influential than it has?

I suppose one factor is that at the introductory level, nobody is going
to buy a separate book on relativity;  instead they will use the relativity
chapter out of whatever "physics" text has been adopted.  But this just
leaves us with the question:  after 40 years, why haven't the textbook
authors gotten with the program yet?  This seems as silly as trying to
eat soup with a fork, 40 year after spoons were invented.

What am I missing?
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