Living in a Four-dimensional World

Special Relativity through Spacetime Diagrams

Class notes by Steve Bryson

• Session 1: What is space?
• Session 2: Picturing spacetime and the Relativity of Time
• Session 3: Motion as a rotation - The Lorentz Transformation and the Spacetime Distance
• Session 4: Coordinates and the Twin Paradox
• Session 5: Energy and Momentum
• Session 6: Derivation of the Lorentz Transformation (somewhat technical)

• Recommended Book List

Useful World Wide Web Sites:

On Special Relativity:

www.fourmilab.ch/cship/cship.html A wonderful site with lots of graphics showing what it's like to fly close to the speed of light

www.phys.uidaho.edu/~pbickers/Courses/310/Notes/book/book.html Another Special Relativity tutorial

www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/relatvty.htm A tutorial on Special and General Relativity

www.weburbia.com/physics/relativity.html Frequently asked questions about Relativity

On Einstein:

www.aip.org/history/einstein/ A history page on Einstein from the American Institute of Physics, including a recording of Einstein explaining E=mc²!

www.westegg.com/einstein/ Lots and lots of Einstein links

www.weburbia.com/olympia/ The Olympia Academy: A site about Einstein and more with lots of links

ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/eric_baird/einstein.htm Contains on-line versions of many of Einstein's writings!

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