Dingle H. The special theory of relativity

4th ed. — London: Methuen & Co., Ltd.; New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1961. — viii + 94 p. — (Methuen's Monographs on Physical Subjects)This book is based on a short course of lectures given in recent years to Honours Physics students at the Imperial College.
So much has been written on the Special Theory of Relativity that a fresh book on the subject calls for some explanation. The apology offered here is that, so far as I know, the treatment adopted — namely, the development of the whole form of the theory from a re-definition, along ordinary scientific lines, of the measurement of length — has not previously been given. Such a treatment exonerates the theory from
the last suspicion of metaphysics, and seems to me to present it in the form in which its significance for both science and philosophy can best be appreciated.
The impulse to publish has been greatly stimulated by a recent correspondence in Nature, from which it is clear that there is still a deep and widespread disagreement on fundamental points of the theory. I hope the systematic development given here will enable the points at issue to be definitely located, and the truth, whatever it may be, brought to light.
A word should be said on the relation of this small work to the excellent little book on Relativity Physics by Professor McCrea, published as one of these Monographs. Apart from the characteristic just mentioned, the present treatment differs from McCrea's in two respects. In the first place it examines in detail the effect of the relativity theory on the fundamental concepts of physics, without attempting to estimate the influence of the resulting modification of physical concepts on the whole structure of physical theory. McCrea, on the other hand, is concerned mainly with the scope of the theory. The result is that the whole of this book is concerned with what McCrea compresses into a few pages, and from this point of view the book may serve as an introduction to his.
Secondly (rather to exaggerate a contrast in order to make it clearer), whereas McCrea's tendency is to present the world of experience as an exemplification of mathematical formulae, the theory is presented here as a mathematical formulation of relations first discovered in the world of experience. For example, McCrea deduces the Fitzgerald contraction from the Lorentz transformation formulae, while here the transformation formulae are deduced from the Fitzgerald contraction. Properly understood, of course, there is no incompatibility between the two procedures, and it may be of advantage to the student to have both available.