Related papers: Teaching relativity at the AstroCamp
Art and science are different ways of exploring the world, but together they have the potential to be thought-provoking, facilitate a science-society dialogue, raise public awareness of science, and develop an understanding of art. For…
These lecture notes provide an introduction to mm/submm extragalactic astronomy, focused on AGN studies, with the final goal of preparing students to their future exploitation of the ALMA capabilities. I first provide an overview of the…
In this lecture I build up the motivation for relativity and gravitation based on general principles and common sense considerations which should fall in the sphere of appreciation of a general reader. There is a novel way of looking at…
We discuss the nature and a general formulation of the relativity principle and we show that it can be justified starting from a strictly operational point of view. We give some remark on the connection with the spacetime symmetry groups.…
These lectures were addressed to nonspecialists willing to learn some basic facts, approaches, tools and observational evidence which conform modern cosmology. The aim is also to try to complement the many excellent treatises that exists on…
Einstein's general theory of relativity is the standard theory of gravity, especially where the needs of astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology and fundamental physics are concerned. As such, this theory is used for many practical purposes…
In the first Lecture, the Big Bang and the Standard Model of particle physics are introduced, as well as the structure of the latter and open issues beyond it. Neutrino physics is discussed in the second Lecture, with emphasis on models for…
Undergraduate physics and astronomy students are expected to engage with scientific literature as they begin their research careers, but reading comprehension skills are rarely explicitly taught in major courses. We seek to determine the…
Teaching cosmology at the undergraduate or high school level requires simplifications and analogies, and inevitably brings the teacher into contact with at least one of the pedagogical interpretations of the expanding universe. The by far…
Electromagnetic theory is central to physics. An undergraduate major in physics typically takes a semester or a year of electromagnetic theory as a junior or senior, and a graduate student in physics typically takes an additional semester…
We have developed a relativistically-accurate computer graphics code and have used it to produce photo-realistic images and videos of scenes where special relativistic effects dominate, either in astrophysical contexts or in imaginary…
The observation of space seems to have always caused wonder into people's collective consciousness, generating a series of historical myths. More recently specially with the development of better tools alongside the constant refinement of…
The magnetic field is traditionally presented as a (pseudo)vector quantity, tied closely to the cross product. Though familiar to experts, many students find these ideas challenging and full of subtleties. Building on earlier work in…
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 article is a partly pedagogical, partly historical and partly technical review of special relativity and its experimental foundations, in honor of the centenary of Einstein's annus mirabilis.
I give a compact, pedagogical review of our present understanding of the universe as based on general relativity. This includes the uniform models, with special reference to the cosmological 'constant'; and the equations for…
Our main goal is to develop plans to increase physics enrollment. Once again we thoroughly analyze the problem from the beginning and reach the conclusion that the most appropriate starting point in this direction should be to look into…
ASTROD I is a planned interplanetary space mission with multiple goals. The primary aims are: to test General Relativity with an improvement in sensitivity of over 3 orders of magnitude, improving our understanding of gravity and aiding the…
This is the written version of a lecture given at the ``VI Mexican School of Gravitation and Mathematical Physics" (Nov 21-27, 2004, Playa del Carmen, Mexico), introducing the basics of Loop Quantum Geometry. The purpose of the written…
This article analyses the current state of Astronomy in Argentina and describes its origins. We briefly describe the institutions where astronomical research takes place, the observational facilities available, the training of staff and…