Related papers: A traveler-centered intro to kinematics
Einstein's special theory of relativity revolutionized physics by teaching us that space and time are not separate entities, but join as ``spacetime''. His general theory of relativity further taught us that spacetime is not just a stage on…
The special theory of relativity has fundamentally changed our views of space and time. The relativity of simultaneity in particular, and the theory of relativity as a whole, still presents significant difficulty for beginners in the…
The concept of elementary particle rests on the idea that it is a physical system with no excited states, so that all possible kinematical states of the particle are just kinematical modifications of any one of them. The way of describing…
The time dependent conformally-flat spherical Rindler spacetime is investigated. The geometry has an apparent horizon that coincides with the causal horizon. The scalar acceleration of a static observer is constant and equals to the…
A potentially powerful approach to quantum gravity has been developed over the last few years under the name of Causal Dynamical Triangulations. Numerical simulations have given very interesting results in the cases of two, three and four…
The relativistic motion of an arbitrary point of an accelerated rigid rod is discussed for the case when velocity and acceleration are directed along the rod's length. The discussion includes the case of a time-dependent force applied to a…
This article provides a self-contained pedagogical introduction to the relativistic kinetic theory of a dilute gas propagating on a curved spacetime manifold (M,g) of arbitrary dimension. Special emphasis is made on geometric aspects of the…
We discuss the usual account of causal structure that relies on the temporal precedence constraint between cause-effect pairs. In particular, we consider the subtle interplay between local and global characters of time and causality encoded…
The standard relativistic theory of accelerated reference frames in Minkowski spacetime is described. The measurements of accelerated observers are considered and the limitations of the standard theory, based on the hypothesis of locality,…
The Alcubierre warp spacetime yields a fascinating chance for comfortable interstellar travel between arbitrary distant places without the time dilation effect as in special relativistic flights. Even though the warp spacetime needs exotic…
We propose a solution to the problem of time for systems with a single global Hamiltonian constraint. Our solution stems from the observation that, for these theories, conventional gauge theory methods fail to capture the full classical…
Most approaches to quantum gravity suggest that relativistic spacetime is not fundamental, but instead emerges from some non-spatiotemporal structure. This paper investigates the implications of this suggestion for the possibility of time…
It is often desirable to analyse trajectory data in local coordinates relative to a reference location. Similarly, temporal data also needs to be transformed to be relative to an event. Together, temporal and spatial contextualisation…
I consider in this book a formulation of Quantum Mechanics. Usually QM is formulated based on the notion of time and space, both of which are thought a priori given quantities or notions. However, when we try to define the notion of…
In this work we look for a geometric description of non-gravitational forces. The basic ideas are proposed studying the interaction between a punctual particle and an electromagnetic external field. For this purpose, we introduce the…
This paper deals with the modeling and mathematical analysis of vehicular traffic phenomena according to a kinetic theory approach, where the microscopic state of vehicles is described by: (i) position, (ii) velocity, as a continuous…
We begin with a scenario that involves point-like observers starting at t=0 from the origin O of an inertial reference frame. They move with all possible proper accelerations in the positive direction of the OX axis. Equipped with light…
We discuss how a class of difficult kinematic problems can play an important role in an introductory course in stimulating students' reasoning on more complex physical situations. The problems presented here have an elementary analysis once…
In this article, we argue that two distinct types of time should be taken into account in relativistic physics: a geometric time, which emanates from the structure of spacetime and its metrics, and a causal time, indicating the flow from…
Starting with two light clocks to derive time dilation expression, as many textbooks do, and then adding a third one, we work on relativistic spacetime coordinates relations for some simple events as emission, reflection and return of light…