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This tutorial, addressing physics teachers and undergraduate students, aims at clarifying some aspects of time in special relativity. In particular, time dilation is usually presented only as the well-known ratio of lab time over proper…
There are many books on the classical subject of special relativity. However, after having spent a number of years, both in relativistic engineering and research with relativity, I have come to the conclusion that there exist a place for a…
The most general form of transformations of spacetime coordinates in Special Theory of Relativity based solely on physical assumptions are described. Only the linearity of spacetime transformations and the constancy of the speed of light…
We present the theory of special relativity here through the lens of differential geometry. In particular, we explicitly avoid any reference to hypotheses of the form "The laws of physics take the same form in all inertial reference frames"…
We present a way of teaching Einstein's special relativity. It starts with Galileo's relativity, the learners know from previous lectures. The lecture underlines that we can have three transformation equations for the space-time coordinates…
The picture of space-time that Minkowski created in 1907 has been followed by two important developments in physics not contained in the original picture: general relativity and quantum mechanics. We will argue that the use of concepts of…
The definition of a reference frame in General Relativity is achieved through the construction of a congruence of time-like world-lines. In this framework, splitting techniques enable us to express physical phenomena in analogy with Special…
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…
We describe a class of modified gravity theories that deform general relativity in a way that breaks time reversal invariance and, very mildly, locality. The algebra of constraints, local physical degrees of freedom, and their linearized…
We argue that the construction of spacetime is personal, specific to each observer, and requires combining aspects of both discovery and creation. What is usually referred to as the block universe then emerges by noting that part of the…
In this article, we argue that the theory of special relativity, as formulated by Einstein, is a philosophical rather than a scientific theory. What is scientific and experimentally supported is the formalism of the relativistic mechanics…
We review why the Thomas rotation is a crucial facet of special relativity, that is just as fundamental, and just as "unintuitive" and "paradoxical", as such traditional effects as length contraction, time dilation, and the ambiguity of…
In contemporary physics space and time are intertwined entities so that kinematical and dynamical quantities are expressed in the four-dimensional space-time. This formulation seems to contradict our every-day experience and perception…
We elucidate how different theoretical assumptions bring about radically different interpretations of the same experimental result. We do this by analyzing special relativity as it was originally formulated. Then, we examine the…
We present a novel paradox in special relativity together with its solution. We call it the four particles paradox. The purpose of this paradox is pedagogical and therefore directed towards students and lecturers of physics. Even if most…
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…
The relation between the special relativity and quantum mechanics is discussed. Based on the postulate that space-time inversion is equavalent to particle-antiparticle transformation, the essence of special relativity is explored and the…
While adhering to the formalism of Special and General Relativity, this paper considers the interpretation of clock rates and the rating of clocks in detail. We also pay particular attention to the crucial requirement of reciprocity between…
There is no doubt that both the special and general theories of relativity capture the imagination. The anti-intuitive properties of the special theory of relativity and its deep philosophical implications, the bizzare and dazzling…
Since the main open problem of contemporary physics is to find a unified description of the four interactions, we present a possible scenario which, till now only at the classical level, is able to englobe experiments ranging from…