Related papers: Relativity for Retired Engineers
The purpose is to introduce in a clear and direct way the students of undergraduate courses in physics and/or astronomy to the subject of radiative transfer. A pedagogical revision is made in order to obtain the radiative transfer equation,…
It is widely accepted by physicists and philosophers of physics alike that there are certain contexts in which general relativity will "break down". In such cases, one expects to need some as-yet undiscovered successor theory. This paper…
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…
It is sometimes claimed that the twin "paradox" requires general relativity for a resolution. This paper presents a simple, exact resolution using only special relativity and the equivalence principle. Two earlier approximate solutions are…
Numerical Relativity is a multidisciplinary field including relativity, magneto-hydrodynamics, astrophysics and computational methods, among others, with the aim of solving numerically highly-dynamical, strong-gravity scenarios where no…
An extension of the theory of General Relativity is proposed, based on pseudo-complex space-time coordinates. The new theory corresponds to the introduction of two, in general different, metrics which are connected through specific…
In papers on the history of general relativity and in personal remembrances of relativists, keywords like "renaissance" and "golden age" of general relativity have been used. We try to show that the first label rests on a weak empirical…
We postulate the applicability of the general form-invariance principle in special relativity. It is shown that this principle holds in classical mechanics. Some examples of transformations between the reference frames which satisfy this…
This article explores the constraints of perception and cognition in relativistic physics. Describing reality as a cognitive representation of our sensory inputs, the article shows how the limitations in perception translate to the…
This is an English translation of the Italian version of an encyclopedia chapter that appeared in the Italian Encyclopedia of the Physical Sciences, edited by Bruno Bertotti (1994). Following requests from colleagues we have decided to make…
A challenge in teaching about special relativity is that a number of the theory's effects are at odds with the intuition of classical physics, as well as student's everyday experience. The relativity of simultaneity, time dilation and…
We attempt to see how closely we can formally obtain the planetary and light path equations of General Relativity by employing certain operations on the familiar Newtonian equation. This article is intended neither as an alternative to nor…
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…
We review the special theory of relativity kinematics and dynamics as well as the general theory of relativity under the aspect of logic.
General Relativity is not the definitive theory of Gravitation due to several shortcomings which are coming out both from theoretical and experimental viewpoints. At large scales (astrophysical and cosmological scales) the attempts to match…
How can we explain the strange behavior of quantum and relativistic entities? Why do they behave in ways that defy our intuition about how physical entities should behave, considering our ordinary experience of the world around us? In this…
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…
It has become increasingly apparent that a number of perplexing issues associated with the interpretation of quantum mechanics are more easily resolved once the notion of retrocausality is introduced. The aim here is to list and discuss…
In the special theory of relativity, Lorentz invariance is extended in Minkowski spacetime from ideal inertial observers to actual observers by means of the hypothesis of locality, which postulates that accelerated observers are always…
It is argued that the `perspectival change' of a physical object in special relativity may be given a natural dynamical explanation in terms of a change in the object under the action of certain forces in a rest properties-preserving way.