Learning: The Journey of a Lifetime

Journals as an Aid to Learning

Science

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An Example of a "Learning Process" Journal (using the 2 colored box format)
 
November 16, 2003

I have a small pile of books, all of which discuss Einstein's relativity theory. I am determined to get on top of this.

Here is a list of the books (ordered by date):

  • Einstein, Albert (1961) Relativity: The Special and the General Theory.
  • Born, Max (1962) Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
  • Gardner, Martin (1962) Relativity Simply Explained.
  • Feynman, Richard et al. (1963) The Feynman Lectures on Physics.
  • Spielberg, Nathan (1987) Seven Ideas That Shook the Universe.
  • Hawking, Stephen (1988) A Brief History of Time.
  • Giancoli, Douglas (1991) Physics. Third Edition.
  • Penrose, Roger (1997) The Large, the Small and the Human Mind.
  • Silver, Brian (1998) The Ascent of Science.
  • Balibar, Francoise (2001) Einstein: Decoding the Universe.
  • Hawking, Stephen (2001) The Universe in a Nutshell.
  • Hawking, Stephen (2002) The Future of Spacetime.
  • Levin, Janna (2002) How the Universe Got Its Spots.
  • Morowitz, Harold (2002) The Emergence of Everything.
  • Atkins, Peter (2003) Galileo's Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science.

Peter Atkins begins chapter Nine with the title Spacetime.

THE GREAT IDEA

Spacetime is curved by matter

Time and space are modes by which we think, and not conditions in which we live.

Albert Einstein

This is my first day where I am spending a clear hour making 'notes' on Learning more about science. It is 5:00 am (Sunday). I now have a pile of books set out for organizing. The important point here is to recognize that the goal is to understand relativity theory, not to read the books. Thus the initial strategy is to browse the books, challenge myself to understand the ideas of relativity theory, stop when I get bogged down and try a different section in another book.

I recall being very impressed with Brian Silver's entire book when I first read it in 1999. I will begin there. Ooops. Nope. I will begin with Peter Atkins: chapter 9 Spacetime. This is both modern and very well written.

The opening subtitle for the chapter and the Einstein quote caught my attention. Those are both critical ideas.


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