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Rating: 
Summary: Controversial but stimulating
Review: Despite the fact that this book is written by a professor of physics at West Virginia University, the contents should not be taken as representing 'fact' as agreed by the scientific community. The reader should understand that there are many modern re-interpretations of standard physics which are not valid. Having said that, this book gives a learned and scholarly description of a new set of possibilities. One difficulty is that the more controversial ideas are not differentiated from the 'standard' ideas. Thus it is hard to know when you are being led into 'disputed territory'. The book is quite expensive for a 202 page paperback. Having said that the paper is of good quality and is stitched together in the style of a hardback. Durability of the book is therefore not an issue. This book is certainly aimed at a graduate level, or above, with probably more than half of the 'reasoning' based on vector calculus expressions of retarded variables. There is no experimental evidence given of any of the new ideas, especially where the new ideas conflict with existing ideas of black holes and general relativity. I would not like to say that this book presents a 'correct' idea of the subject; it does however present a stimulating argument, and deserves credit for this achievement in its own right. The last part of this book is a paper on gravitation written by Oliver Heaviside in 1893. The last sentence is "Perhaps, therefore, my suggestions may not be wholly useless." This sentence sums up my feelings about the book as a whole. Leslie Green CEng MIEE
Rating:
Summary: Controversial but stimulating
Review: Despite the fact that this book is written by a professor of physics at West Virginia University, the contents should not be taken as representing `fact' as agreed by the scientific community. The reader should understand that there are many modern re-interpretations of standard physics which are not valid. Having said that, this book gives a learned and scholarly description of a new set of possibilities. One difficulty is that the more controversial ideas are not differentiated from the `standard' ideas. Thus it is hard to know when you are being led into `disputed territory'. The book is quite expensive for a 202 page paperback. Having said that the paper is of good quality and is stitched together in the style of a hardback. Durability of the book is therefore not an issue. This book is certainly aimed at a graduate level, or above, with probably more than half of the `reasoning' based on vector calculus expressions of retarded variables. There is no experimental evidence given of any of the new ideas, especially where the new ideas conflict with existing ideas of black holes and general relativity. I would not like to say that this book presents a `correct' idea of the subject; it does however present a stimulating argument, and deserves credit for this achievement in its own right. The last part of this book is a paper on gravitation written by Oliver Heaviside in 1893. The last sentence is "Perhaps, therefore, my suggestions may not be wholly useless." This sentence sums up my feelings about the book as a whole. Leslie Green CEng MIEE
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant new perspective on E&M and Gravity
Review: Starting with the principle of causality (that is, that causes must precede effects in time) Jefimenko argues that Maxwell's equations as usually presented do not give us a causal understanding of EM phenomena. He then goes on to derive equivalent equations for the electric and magnetic fields that are causal (namely the retarded fields). Using these, he presents a variety of examples to argue that E&M still holds many curious and fascinating surprises. Finally, he applies the same methodology to Newtonian gravity, and argues convincingly that the standard rejection of this theory in favor of GR was too hasty, since a causal formulation of Newton's theory can reproduce many of the qualitative features of general relativity. An absolute must read for anyone interested in the foundations of physics, or anyone skeptical of the irrationality in modern physics.
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