相关论文: Special Relativity as a Physical Theory
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…
Special Relativity is taught to physics sophomores at Johns Hopkins University in a series of eight lectures. Lecture 1 covers the principle of relativity and the derivation of the Lorentz transform. Lecture 2 covers length contraction and…
Special relativity theory is generalized to two or more ``maximal'' signalling speeds. This framework is discussed in three contexts: (i) as a scenario for superluminal signalling and motion, (ii) as the possibility of two or more ``light''…
A new approach to special relativity is presented which introduces coordinate systems with imaginary time axes, observation systems, and coordinate bases.
Criteria for defining errors of a physical theory are formulated. It is shown that the Special Theory of Relativity (STR) has a solid mathematical basis. An enormous amount of experiments carried out in particle physics use beams of…
This is a pedagogical introduction to the treatment of general relativity as a quantum effective field theory. Gravity fits nicely into the effective field theory description and forms a good quantum theory at ordinary energies.
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…
In this note, we discuss the significance of the general principle of relativity for a physical theory that abandons the newtonian concept of force and, hence, uses an entirely different conception for the ``cause'' behind motions of…
This paper constitutes a background to the paper 'Quantum mechanics as "space-time statistical mechanics"?', arXiv:quant-ph/0501133, presented previously by the author. But it is also a free-standing and self-contained paper. The purpose of…
An overview is provided of the singularity theorems in cosmological contexts at a level suitable for advanced graduate students. The necessary background from tensor and causal geometry to understand the theorems is supplied, the…
This white paper aims to identify an open problem in 'Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality' --namely whether quantum theory and special relativity are formally compatible--, to indicate what the underlying issues are, and put forward…
Gravity theories with non-minimally coupled scalar fields are used as characteristic examples in order to demonstrate the challenges, pitfalls and future perspectives of considering alternatives to general relativity. These lecture notes…
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 brief review is intended to introduce gravitational physicists to recent developments in which general relativity is being used to describe certain aspects of condensed matter systems, e.g., superconductivity.
The theory of measurement is employed to elucidate the physical basis of general relativity. For measurements involving phenomena with intrinsic length or time scales, such scales must in general be negligible compared to the (translational…
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…
The principles of the special theory of relativity are extremely simple. A knowledge of the Pythagorean theorem and an ability to perform the simplest algebraic operations are sufficient to be conversant with the kinematics of the special…
Students are often mystified by the reasoning that leads from the postulates of special relativity to the requirement of covariance. This is partly due to the lack of transparency resulting from the failure to clearly separate the roles the…
Visualizations that adopt a first-person point of view allow observation and, in the case of interactive simulations, experimentation with relativistic scenes. This paper gives examples of three types of first-person visualizations:…
The purpose of this paper is to provide an elementary introduction to the qualitative and quantitative results of velocity combination in special relativity, including the Wigner rotation and Thomas precession. We utilize only the most…