Related papers: Special Relativity properties from Minkowski diagr…
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…
This work analyzes the difficulties in learning and teaching Einstein's theory of special relativity. An extensive bibliographic review has been performed, considering articles published in the most relevant journals on science education,…
We present a comprehensive introduction to the kinematics of special relativity based on Minkowski diagrams and provide a graphical alternative to each and every topic covered in a standard introductory sequence. Compared to existing…
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…
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…
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…
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 discuss the most elementary properties of the hyperbolic trigonometry and show how they can be exploited to get a simple, albeit interesting, geometrical interpretation of the special relativity. It yields indeed a straightforword…
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…
A simple visual representation of Minkowski spacetime appropriate for a student with a background in geometry and algebra is presented. Minkowski spacetime can be modeled with a Euclidean 4-space to yield accurate visualizations as…
Arguments are reviewed and extended in favor of presenting special relativity at least in part from a more mechanistic point of view. A number of generic mechanisms are catalogued and illustrated with the goal of making relativistic effects…
This paper aims to provide teachers with a tool to teach the essential features of special relativity, considering the students' difficulties highlighted by numerous studies. Our proposal presents special relativity as the solution to the…
An approach to special relativity is outlined which emphasizes the wave and field mechanisms which physically produce the relativistic effects, with the goal of making them seem more natural to students by connecting more explicitly with…
Special Relativity is often seen as a conceptually difficult topic, which in turn is difficult to effectively teach. This work focuses on the role of visualizations as a tool in teaching Special Relativity at the secondary or university…
I review, some of the algebraic and geometric structures that underlie the theory of Special Relativity. This includes a discussion of relativity as a symmetry principle, derivations of the Lorentz group, its composition law, its Lie…
Simple physical models of a measuring rod and of a clock are used to demonstrate the contraction of objects and clock retardation in special relativity. It is argued that the models could help in promoting student understanding of special…
This review presents an overview of various kinds of models -- physical, abstract, mathematical, visual -- that can be used to present the concepts and applications of Einstein's general theory of relativity at the level of undergraduate…
The classifying space of inertial reference frames in special relativity is naturally hyperbolic. There is a remarkable interplay between central elements of hyperbolic geometry and those of special relativity -- which, to a certain extent,…
Many professional physicists do not fully understand the implications of the Einstein equivalence principle of general relativity. Consequently, many are unaware of the fact that special relativity is fully capable of handling accelerated…
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…