Related papers: Relativity, the Special Theory, explained to Child…
A modern elementary introduction to special relativity for advanced school children or first-year university students, in Russian. I try to demonstrate that relativity does not contradict common sense; on the contrary, it follows from…
Theory of Relativity (Special and General) is one of the most influential theories of the 20th century and has changed the way we view the world. It is part of many undergraduate curriculums and it is often suggested that it should be…
The goal of this lecture is to introduce the student to the theory of Special Relativity. Not to overload the content with mathematics, the author will stick to the simplest cases; in particular only reference frames using Cartesian…
An elementary account of special relativity for school-children.
This paper reports the first study on the ability of Year 3 students (ages 7 to 8) to conceptualize Einsteinian concepts. This paper reports that children aged 7-8 are not too young to learn key Einsteinian concepts, and the benefits of…
The development of both special and general relativity is accomplished in a series of 6 papers using a simple approach. The purpose is to explain the how and why of relativity to a broad public, and to be useful for students of physics by…
A modest aim of this pedagogical presentation is to analyze, critically, certain fundamental physical concepts to illustrate the physical principles behind the special theory of relativity and, hence, to also illustrate the limitations of…
We treat, as an illustrative example of gravitational time dilation in relativity, the observation that the center of the Earth is younger than the surface by an appreciable amount. Richard Feynman first made this insightful point and…
This paper has pedagogical motivation. It is not uncommon that students have great difficulty in accepting the new concepts of standard special relativity, since these seem contrary to common sense. Experience shows that geometrical or…
The nature of gravity is fundamental to our understanding of our own solar system, the galaxy and the structure and evolution of the Universe. Einstein's general theory of relativity is the standard model that is used for almost ninety…
These lectures notes contain an introduction to General Relativity. They are addressed to a general mathematical audience with no specific background in physics. The goal is to motivate and explain Einstein's theory of gravity and discuss…
A century after its formulation by Einstein, it is time to incorporate special relativity early in the physics curriculum. The approach advocated here employs a simple algebraic extension of vector formalism that generates Minkowski…
We provide some guidance and examples to clear up common misconceptions about special relativity. These misconceptions often come from trying to express the truths of special relativity in Newtonian terms rather than in terms more natural…
This is the centenary year of general relativity, it is therefore natural to reflect on what perspective we have evolved in 100 years. I wish to share here a novel perspective, and the insights and directions that ensue from it.
We determine the Lorentz transformations and the kinematic content and dynamical framework of special relativity as purely an extension of Galileo's thoughts. No reference to light is ever required: The theories of relativity are logically…
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…
Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity was proposed a little over a hundred years back. It remained a bedrock of twentieth century physics right up to Quantum Field Theory. However, the failure over several decades to provide a unified…
The nature of gravity is fundamental to understand the scaffolding of the Universe and its evolution. Einstein's general theory of relativity has been scrutinized for over ninety five years and shown to describe accurately all phenomena…
The theory of relativity, which was proposed in the beginning of the 20th century, applies to particles and frames of reference whose velocity is less than the velocity of light. In this paper we shall show how this theory can be extended…
Einstein's theory of relativity is largely thought of as one of the most important discoveries of the 20$^{th}$ century and continues to pass observational tests over 100 years later. Yet, it is Newtonian gravity, a 350 year old formalism…