It's About Time: Understanding Einstein's Relativity

This readable and complete exposition of the nature of time as addressed in Einstein's special theory of relativity is accessible to readers without training in the sciences. Published on the 100th anniversary of Einstein's famous 1905 paper, it assumes only competency in simple high school algebra and a bit of elementary plane geometry.

The premise of the book is that relativity ought to be an important part of everyone's education because it is largely about time, a subject with which all are familiar. The book reveals that some of our most intuitive notions about time are shockingly wrong, and that the real nature of time discovered by Einstein can be rigorously explained without advanced mathematics.

The book evolved as Mermin taught the subject to diverse groups of undergraduates at Cornell University, none of them science majors, over three and a half decades. Mermin's approach is imaginative, yet accurate and complete. Clear, lively, and informal, the book will appeal to intellectually curious readers of all kinds, including even professional physicists, who will be intrigued by its highly original approach.