Special relativity literature
_I run towards you at speed x. You walk towards me at speed y. Yet, you perceive my speed to be x…, Who am I?_
I look like a vector, transform not-really like a vector, along with magnitude and direction, I also keep track of time…, Who am I?
General advice
The importance of Special relativity (SR) for a current-age physicist can not be overstated. Whether you become a hard-core relativist or in astrophysics or particle physics, the core fundamentals of special relativity will be used in your foundations. If you are looking forward to understanding general relativity (GR), a good piece of take-home information would be that SR is just a *special* case of general relativity. If you want to go into particle physics, remember that colliders at CERN shoot particles at each other at speeds that are close to the speed of light.
Beginner Books
🌟 Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory - Leonard Susskind
Not a textbook, but I guarantee you that it isn’t a popular science book either. This book from the Theoretical Minimum series falls somewhere in between. The first three chapters (approximately 100 pages) are dedicated to special relativity, including all the fun paradoxes. I had a blast reading it during my undergrad. He starts by explaining the Lorentz transformation (the bread and butter of SR) excellent tool called Minkowski diagrams (also known as spacetime diagrams). It’s surreal how well these diagrams grasp the basic geometry of the theory and provide a visual aid to understanding the principles of SR. For this sole reason, I find this book extremely powerful. But it doesn’t end there; in the second chapter, he immediately dives into 4-vectors (this is the answer to riddle#2 on top of the page). From a basic perspective, I like to think about 4-vectors being normal vectors on steroids such that they embed the laws of SR into them (Of course, their proper geometrical interpretation shows you that they are a completely different beast in comparison to normal Euclidean vectors). The remaining part of the book covers Classical field theory. Why would you want to study classical field theory in this modern quantum everything world? To begin with, just like before understanding quantum mechanics, you must understand classical mechanics. Similarly, to understand Quantum field theory… I hope you see where I am going with this…Introduction to Electrodynamics - David.J.Griffiths
Chapter 12 covers special relativity. He covers the whole shebang you would want in a first course in SR. A logical read after reading the recommended chapters from Susskind’s book. He also covers the 4-vector formalism, which is crucial for a modern-day physicist. Pay keen attention to the examples and ensure you understand your 4-vectors. He also covers parts of relativistic electrodynamics, giving you a quick taste of classical field theory.Gravity: An introduction to Einstein’s General Relativity - David.J.Griffiths
I know what you are thinking, “Aren’t the suggestions here supposed to be for special relativity and not general?". You are right, but as mentioned in the general advice section, special relativity is a particular case of general relativity. Part I / the first six chapters of this book do an excellent job covering the fundamental principles. Well worked out examples, and the problems are not too complex either. If you are someone whose next step is to take a course on GR, I will jump here after finishing the 🌟 suggestion.Theoretical Physics IV: Special Relativity - Nolting
The book is advertised as for beginners, which is not wrong, but he gives minimal physical intuition. Nevertheless, I have found myself reading this book to look for mathematical precision. It does an impeccable job while doing this. As an example, Griffiths (or any other book above for this matter) doesn’t use the Dirac delta function (distribution if some mathematician is reading this) $\delta(x-x_0)$ or the Heaviside theta function $\theta(r-r_0)$ while defining charge/current densities. The integral boundaries are set from the worded part of the problem. This is where the book shines; attention to mathematical detail so see how every step comes from the previous one. All exercises have solved solutions on the back, and the problems are excellent. The answers are not wrong, but sometimes you will catch yourself going, “What? Why? How?". I like to think he did it on purpose; he gave the solutions but still makes you think about the steps.
Advanced reference books
Classical Electrodynamics - David Jackson
Solutions - Website 1, Solutions -Website 2Course in Theoretical Physics II - The classical theory of fields: Landau Lifshitz
Freely available online sources
Lecture notes - Generally complement well in parallel to a formal course
