The Geometry of Minkowski Spacetime

Download or read book The Geometry of Minkowski Spacetime written by Gregory L. Naber and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This mathematically rigorous treatment examines Zeeman's characterization of the causal automorphisms of Minkowski spacetime and the Penrose theorem concerning the apparent shape of a relativistically moving sphere. Other topics include the construction of a geometric theory of the electromagnetic field; an in-depth introduction to the theory of spinors; and a classification of electromagnetic fields in both tensor and spinor form. Appendixes introduce a topology for Minkowski spacetime and discuss Dirac's famous "Scissors Problem." Appropriate for graduate-level courses, this text presumes only a knowledge of linear algebra and elementary point-set topology. 1992 edition. 43 figures.