Thomas Moore uses a spacetime approach in his introductory "textbook" (actually it is a set of six paperback books) "Six Ideas That Shaped Physics." The whole set is very good but since his field is General Relativity I think you'll find his unit R - Laws of Physics are Frame-Independent to be exceptionally strong.
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From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu on behalf of Jeff Loats
Sent: Tue 8/3/2010 5:47 PM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: [Phys-l] Minkowski in the classroom (splinter from "how to proverelativity")
Hi John (Denker),
I have seen these ideas of yours before (probably on this forum) and I
always feel like they really do help with visualizing relativity.
I am curious if you (or others) know of textbooks for Modern Physics that do
SR using spacetime rather than what seems to be the more standard "time
dilation & length contraction" version.
Perhaps this is really about John Clements comments... that even students
who have gotten past a year of calc-based physics may not have the vector
skills to tackle relativity in this way.
I certainly gain a lot of insight from it, and as I contemplate teaching SR
to a new batch of physics sophomores in about a month I am left wondering
why it is that few textbooks have taken that path.
Jeff
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Jeff Loats
Metropolitan State College of Denver