Astr 350 CH | Lecture 18 | Spring 2022
Aristotle
Astronomy 350
Lecture 18, March 2 Spring 2022 Galileo Galilei

Lecture Notes: pdf file

Relativity

Pre-Relativity

  • prehistory: Aristotelian and Galilean spacetime, relativity
  • the ether?
  • Michelson & Morley experiment

Special Relativity

  • principle of relativity
  • the price: relativity of simultaneity
  • Gedankenexperiment--light clock
  • other consequences:
    length contraction
    time dilation
  • relativity, mass, and energy
    nonrelativistic vs ultrarelativistic motions
  • experimental tests: live events from ATLAS experiment in CERN
The Persistence of Memory, S. Dali 1931

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