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I'm trying to learn STR on my own. As I read through a few books and saw a few video lectures - I feel to really understand STR you need to really understand and appreciate precisely (and formally) how do you measure space-time coordinates (i.e. x,t say in the case of 1D)

So is a there a book or a reference which teaches/defines/explains how measurements for x and t are made in Physics and it's connection to STR a bit more rigorously.

[This is to answer why this Q is not duplicate] While there are many references already cited by people here regarding STR which I have seen - What I'm specifically looking at is a book which defines and treats the concepts & process for measuring distances and time more rigorously and how that ultimately results in development of logical basis of STR. As I trust based on my initial readings STR is ultimately closely linked to this and can't be looked in isolation. Many of the books already mentioned in previous answers might already cover this but as I have not surveyed all the books - hence asking anyone here who can guide me.

To try (as I do not understand these concepts yet) to put it more concretely - Mathematically, event = (x,t) is a particular point in the space-time continuum.

A physical event is like a "flash of a light". How do you assign a mathematical event (x,t) to a physical event?

What do you mean you have a clock at every point?

I would want to read up and understand such questions (and more) in a bit more detail and rigorously.

Thanks

aman_cc
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  • I'm not sure what you mean by 'measure space-time coordinates'... You measure distance and time in the same way you do for any experiment (rulers, stopwatches, maybe something more sophisticated for more precision/accuracy). – gautampk Aug 24 '18 at 10:15
  • There's the "bottom-up" way of seeing how c is constant, etc: https://youtu.be/ruEBE5oyjBc -- the focus is very much on measurements: clocks, rods... – Travis Lee Aug 24 '18 at 10:28
  • Yes I agree - but I guess there are some inherent assumptions we make which critical to understand what we are doing and we (at-least I) need to understand that more crisply ? I'm not so focused on precision but for e.g. a rigorous definition of time - in terms of how it is measured – aman_cc Aug 24 '18 at 10:28
  • I fully agree with you. These question are essential to understand what is going on. Personally I think Berkeleys Physics Course Volume 1 presents these things quite nicely. – lalala Aug 24 '18 at 10:12
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    Hi aman_cc. Welcome to Phys.SE. Please note that res. recom. qs are restricted on Phys.SE. To reopen this post (v4) consider to make a descriptive title, so that this thread doesn't just become yet another list of SR books but actually answers your concrete q. – Qmechanic Aug 25 '18 at 07:14
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    @aman_cc, you actually have two questions toward the end of the post that would be quite reasonable to post on their own. (1) "How do you assign a mathematical event (x,t) to a physical event?" (2) "What do you mean you have a clock at every point?" I'd encourage you to post each of those separately, if you haven't done so already. Don't ask for resources, just ask the question. – David Z Aug 29 '18 at 07:13

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