Preface 1
1. First Principles
1.1 Experience and Spacetime 5
1.2 Systems of Reference 12
1.3 Inertia and Relativity 19
1.4 The Relativity of Light 26
1.5 Corresponding States 36
1.6 A More Practical Arrangement 47
1.7 Staircase Wit 61
1.8 Another Symmetry 73
1.9 Null Coordinates 81
2. A Complex of Phenomena
2.1 The Spacetime Interval 90
2.2 Force Laws and Maxwell's Equations 97
2.3 The Inertia of Energy 108
2.4 Doppler Shift for Sound and Light 121
2.5 Stellar Aberration 128
2.6 Mobius Transformations of the Night Sky 142
2.7 The Sagnac Effect 150
2.8 Refraction Between Moving Media 161
2.9 Accelerated Travels 169
2.10 The Starry Messenger 184
2.11 Thomas Precession 195
3. Several Valuable Suggestions
3.1 Postulates and Principles 204
3.2 Natural and Violent Motions 214
3.3 De Mora Luminis 221
3.4 Stationary Paths 230
3.5 A Quintessence of So Subtle a Nature 236
3.6 The End of My Latin 242
3.7 Zeno and the Paradox of Motion 250
3.8 A Very Beautiful Day 257
3.9 Constructing the Principles 264
4. Weighty Arguments
4.1 Immovable Spacetime 270
4.2 Inertial and Gravitational Separations 280
4.3 Free-Fall Equations 285
4.4 Force, Curvature, and Uncertainty 289
4.5 Conventional Wisdom 295
4.6 The Field of All Fields 307
4.7 The Inertia of Twins 312
4.8 The Breakdown of Simultaneity 317
5. Extending the Principle
5.1 Vis Inertiae 325
5.2 Tensors, Contravariant and Covariant 333
5.3 Curvature, Intrinsic and Extrinsic 343
5.4 Relatively Straight 361
5.5 Schwarzschild Metric from Kepler's 3rd Law 370
5.6 The Equivalence Principle 377
5.7 Riemannian Geometry 384
5.8 The Field Equations 396
6. Ist Das Wirklich So?
6.1 An Exact Solution 408
6.2 Anomalous Precession 416
6.3 Bending Light 427
6.4 Radial Paths in a Spherically Symmetrical Field 435
6.5 Intersecting Orbits 446
6.6 Ideal Clocks in Arbitrary Motion 453
6.7 Acceleration in Schwarzschild Coordinates 461
6.8 Sources in Motion 468
7. Cosmology
7.1 Is the Universe Closed? 475
7.2 The Formation and Growth of Black Holes 486
7.3 Falling Into and Hovering Near A Black Hole 495
7.4 Curled-Up Dimensions 507
7.5 Packing Universes In Spacetime 512
7.6 Cosmological Coherence 518
7.7 Boundaries and Symmetries 526
7.8 Global Interpretations of Local Experience 533
8. The Secret Confidence of Nature
8.1 Kepler, Napier, and the Third Law 545
8.2 Newton's Cosmological Queries 550
8.3 The Helen of Geometers 558
8.4 Refractions On Relativity 562
8.5 Scholium 573
8.6 On Gauss' Mountains 578
8.7 Strange Meeting 583
8.8 Who Invented Relativity? 590
8.9 Paths Not Taken 603
9. The Relativistic Topology
9.1 In The Neighborhood 611
9.2 Up To Diffeomorphism 620
9.3 Higher-Order Metrics 626
9.4 Polarization and Spin 632
9.5 Entangled Events 641
9.6 Von Neumann's Postulate and Bell's Freedom 647
9.7 Angels and Archetypes 654
9.8 Quaedam Tertia Natura Abscondita 657
9.9 Locality and Temporal Asymmetry 661
9.10 Spacetime Mediation of Quantum Interactions 668
Conclusion 671
Appendix: Mathematical Miscellany 677
Bibliography 690
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Reflections on Relativity