"In 1905, Albert Einstein offered a revolutionary theoryspecial relativity - to explain some of the most troubling problems in current physics concerning electromagnetism and motion. Soon afterward, Hermann Minkowski recast special relativity essentially as a new geometric structure for spacetime. These ideas are the subject of the first part of the book. The second part develops the main implications of Einstein's general relativity as a theory of gravity rooted in the differential geometry of surfaces."--BOOK JACKET.