Related papers: Intuition in Einsteinian Physics
Writing and argumentation are critical to both professional physics and physics education. However, the skill of making an extended argument in writing is often overlooked in physics classrooms, apart from certain practices like lab…
The phenomenon of Brownian motion and Einstein's contribution to its understanding are introduced in a simple language.
We provide an introduction to selected recent advances in the mathematical understanding of Einstein's theory of gravitation.
The space-time of modern physics is tailored on light. We rigorously construct the basic entities needed by kinematics: geometry of the physical space and time, using as tool electromagnetic waves, and particularly light-rays. After such a…
We first see that the inertia of Newtonian mechanics is absolute and troublesome. General relativity can be viewed as Einstein's attempt to remedy, by making inertia relative, to matter---perhaps imperfectly though, as at least a couple of…
In these notes I try to introduce the reader to the topic of axions: their theoretical motivation and expected phenomenology, their role in astrophysics and as dark matter candidate, and the experimental techniques to detect them. Special…
The confrontation between Einstein's theory of gravitation and experiment is summarized. Although all current experimental data are compatible with general relativity, the importance of pursuing the quest for possible deviations from…
As an expansion of complex numbers, the quaternions show close relations to numerous physically fundamental concepts. In spite of that, the didactic potential provided by quaternion interrelationships in formulating physical laws are hardly…
This book is an attempt to help students transform all of the concepts of quantum mechanics into concrete computer representations, which can be constructed, evaluated, analyzed, and hopefully understood at a deeper level than what is…
We discuss the key role that Hamiltonian notions play in physics. Five examples are given that illustrate the versatility and generality of Hamiltonian notions. The given examples concern the interconnection between quantum mechanics,…
There is a myth that Einstein's discovery of general relativity was due to his following beautiful mathematics to discover new insights about nature. I argue that this is an incorrect reading of the history and that what Einstein did was to…
Almost all theories of physics have expressed physical laws by means of differential equations. One can ask: why differential equations? What is special about them? This article addresses these questions and is presented as an inquiry-based…
As part of a longitudinal study into identity development in upper-level physics students, a phenomenographic research method was used to examine students' perceptions of what it means to be a physicist. The results revealed four different…
The University of Maryland (UMD) Biology Education and Physics Education Research Groups are investigating students' views on the role of physics in introductory biology courses. This paper presents data from an introductory course that…
Was Einstein wrong? This paper provides a detailed technical review of Einstein's special and general relativity from an astrophysical perspective, including the historical development of the theories, experimental tests, modern…
Our conventional understanding of space-time, as well as our notion of geometry, break down once we attempt to describe the very early stages of the evolution of our universe. The extreme physical conditions near the Big Bang necessitate an…
There exists some confusion, as evidenced in the literature, regarding the nature of the gravitational field in Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. It is argued here the this confusion is a result of a change in interpretation of the…
The key difference between math as math and math in science is that in science we blend our physical knowledge with our knowledge of math. This blending changes the way we put meaning to math and even to the way we interpret mathematical…
I show that with the discovery of the Higgs boson we have entered a new phase of our understanding of nature. This leads us towards a paradigm shift in the search for possible new physics, away from major extensions like supersymmetry…
A new direction to understand gravity has recently been explored by considering classical gravity to be a derived interaction from an underlying theory. This underlying theory would involve new degrees of freedom at a deeper level and it…