A good general introduction to general relativity and quantum mechanics?

[John Salerno]

Hi everyone. I'm hoping someone can suggest a good book (or two) that gives a general but somewhat thorough summary of these two topics. I was considering reading The Elegant Universe, but I wasn't sure if I needed a better understanding of these two areas before moving on to string theory -- unless this book also introduces relativity and QM?

 

Otherwise, some other general introduction (aimed at non-scientists) would be great.

 

Thanks!

[Klaynos]

What's your maths level?

[John Salerno]

What's your maths level?

 

I like math but I'm no expert. Like I said, though, I'm looking for something aimed at a general audience, not something that requires prior advanced knowledge of any of the fields.

[Klaynos]

Kinda rules out the book I was thinking of for QM. Have you considered reading the Feynmann lectures? Or watching them, there are sections on you tube I believe. He is great at providing explanations that are understandable and useful to people with pretty much any (or no) science background.

[John Salerno]

Kinda rules out the book I was thinking of for QM. Have you considered reading the Feynmann lectures? Or watching them, there are sections on you tube I believe. He is great at providing explanations that are understandable and useful to people with pretty much any (or no) science background.

 

I've heard of those, but I assumed they leaned more toward QM rather than classical mechanics. I wanted to start with CM, then move on to relativity and then QM, sort of like reading a summary of the history of modern physics.

[Klaynos]

I've heard of those, but I assumed they leaned more toward QM rather than classical mechanics. I wanted to start with CM, then move on to relativity and then QM, sort of like reading a summary of the history of modern physics.

 

It's been a while, so I can't really comment. They are excellent though.