[Xlythe]

If you like hard sci-fi, Greg Egan has a written a few books that cover what life would be like if there were 2 dimensions of time (http://www.gregegan.net/DICHRONAUTS/DICHRONAUTS.html) or if the dimension of time was sumed instead of subtracted when measuring distance (http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html)

It's amazing to think how the universe is ruled by such minute details.

[Zecc]

> minute details

Pun unintended?

[bollu]

Thanks! Are there more Greg Egan books about relativity? And does he spell out the mathematical details somewhere?

[mherdeg]

One of my favorites is (spoiler alert) Incandescence, which presents the utterly novel concept of an alien civilization whose faculties, environment, and thought processes are totally un-human. The characters in this story very gradually discover the principles of relativity from scratch.

For me reading this book, the process of understanding what it is that they are understanding ends up conveying very little useful information of how humans understand physics -- a bizarre and thought-provoking experience.