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A simple introduction to this subject is provided in Special relativity for beginners Special relativity (SR) or the special theory of relativity is the physical theory published in 1905 by Albert Einstein. It replaced Newtonian notions of space and time and incorporated electromagnetism as represented by Maxwell's equations. The theory is called "special" because it applies the principle of relativity only to the "restricted" or "special" case of inertial reference frames in flat spacetime, where the effects of gravity can be ignored. Ten years later, Einstein published his general theory of relativity (general relativity, "GR") which incorporated these effects.
History and motivationMain article: History of special relativity The principle of relativity was introduced by Galileo. Overturning the old absolutist views of Aristotle, it held that motion, or at least uniform motion in a straight line, only had meaning relative to something else, and that there was no absolute reference frame by which all things could be measured. Galileo also assumed a set of transformations called the Galilean transformations, which seem like common sense today. Galileo produced five laws of motion. In contrast, Newton inferred from the effects of rotation the existence of an "absolute space" - an absolute reference frame - on which he based his theory. Thus he constructed an improved set of equations containing only three laws of motion. Still, he kept the principle of relativity for what can be observed— uniform motion could not detect absolute space. The principle of relativity seemed to work well for everyday phenomena involving solid objects, but light was still problematic. At the end of the 19th century light was understood in terms of Maxwell's equations, which related the known facts that changes in magnetic fields causes changes in electric fields and vice versa, in such a way that propagating electro-magnetic waves could be set up. Since these waves were calculated to travel at the speed of light, these waves were identified to be 'light'. However, the equations as initially derived appeared to imply that the speed of light was the same for any 'frame of reference'; which seemed ridiculous. At the time it seemed entirely reasonable, and quite within the experimental evidence, to assume that, as mechanical waves travel through a medium of some kind, so would light. Maxwell thus believed that light travelled within a medium at a constant speed, and his equation applied only to this medium at rest. This hypothetical medium was called the "luminiferous aether." Thus, the idea of an aether seemed to reintroduce the idea of a detectable absolute frame of reference, one that is stationary with respect to the aether. Modified versions of Maxwells equations were used when the frame of reference was moving relative to this aether by transforming the time and space axes. However, after Maxwell's very successful unification of light, electricity, and magnetism, experimental evidence such as Michelson-Morley experiment began to show that all was not well. A consensus began to emerge that the speed of light does not vary with the speed of the observer, and the speed of light must be invariant (the same) for all observers. This seemed to further conflict with the principle of relativity. Hendrik Lorentz proposed a resolution by postulating an aether theory in which objects and observers travelling with respect to a stationary aether underwent a physical shortening (Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction) and a change in temporal rate (time dilation) and additionally that simultanous events in one reference frame could happen at different times in a different reference frames. This seemingly threatened to make the laws of physics irrational, and uncertain, and Poincaré's version of the relativity principle (1904) went: "The laws of physical phenomenons must be the same, whether for a fixed observer, as also for one dragged in a motion of uniform translation, so that we do not and cannot have any mean to discern whether or not we are dragged in a such motion." Einstein's contribution was, among other things, to derive Lorentz's equations from the Principle of relativity. This was done from the Principle of Relativity and the constancy of light speed, without assuming the presence of a fixed aether (some modern derivations use simple geometry--including the Pythagorean theorem). Because the aether was not used in the derivation, many physicists use Ockham's razor to remove it entirely, but, as with Poincaré's formulation no uniform speed relative to an ether can be detected anyway. The original title for Einstein's paper translates from the German as "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies". Max Planck suggested the term "relativity" to highlight the notion of transforming the laws of physics between observers moving relative to one another, and the term 'Special' distinguishes it from the later general relativity. PostulatesMain article: Postulates of special relativity 1. First postulate (principle of relativity)
2. Second postulate (invariance of c)
StatusMain article: Status of special relativity Special relativity is only accurate when gravitational effects are negligible or very weak, otherwise it must be replaced by general relativity. At very small scales, such as at the Planck length and below, it is also possible that special relativity breaks down, due to the effects of quantum gravity. However, at macroscopic scales and in the absence of strong gravitational fields, special relativity is now universally accepted by the physics community and experimental results which appear to contradict it are widely believed to be due to unreproducible experimental error. Because of the freedom one has to select how one defines units of length and time in physics, it is possible to make one of the two postulates of relativity a tautological consequence of the definitions, but one cannot do this for both postulates simultaneously, as when combined they have consequences which are independent of one's choice of definition of length and time. Special relativity is mathematically self-consistent, and is also compatible with all modern physical theories, most notably quantum field theory, string theory, and general relativity (in the limiting case of negligible gravitational fields). However special relativity is incompatible with several earlier theories, most notably Newtonian mechanics. See Status of special relativity for a more detailed discussion. A few key experiments can be mentioned that led to special relativity:
A number of experiments have been conducted to test special relativity against rival theories. These include:
ConsequencesMain article: Consequences of Special Relativity Special relativity leads to different physical predictions than Galilean relativity when relative velocities become comparable to the speed of light. The speed of light is so much larger than anything humans encounter that some of the effects predicted by relativity are initially counter intuitive.
Lack of an absolute reference frameSpecial Relativity rejects the idea of any observable absolute ('unique' or 'special') frame of reference; rather physics must look the same to all observers travelling at a constant velocity (inertial frame). This 'principle of relativity' dates back to Galileo, and is incorporated into Newtonian Physics. In the late 19th Century, some physicists suggested that the universe was filled with a substance known as "aether" which transmitted Electromagnetic waves. Aether constituted an absolute reference frame against which speeds could be measured. Aether had some wonderful properties: it was sufficiently elastic that it could support electromagnetic waves, those waves could interact with matter, yet it offered no resistance to bodies passing through it. The results of various experiments, including the Michelson-Morley experiment, suggested to some that the Earth was always 'stationary' relative to the Aether - something that is difficult to explain. The most elegant solution was to discard the notion of Aether and an absolute frame, and to adopt Einstein's postulates. Space, time, and velocityChanging views of spacetime along the world line of a rapidly accelerating observer.In this animation, the dashed line is the world line of a particle whose view of spacetime is being illustrated. The balls are placed at regular intervals of proper time along the world line. The solid diagonal lines are the light cones for the observer's current event, and intersect at that event. The small dots are other arbitrary events in the spacetime. For the observer's current instantaneous inertial frame of reference, the vertical direction is temporal and the horizontal direction is spatial.The slope of the world line (deviation from being vertical) is the velocity of the particle on that section of the world line. So at a bend in the world line the particle is being accelerated. Note how the view of spacetime changes as current event passes through the accelerations, changing the instantaneous inertial frame of reference. These changes are governed by the Lorentz transformations. Also note that: • the balls on the world line before/after future/past accelerations are more spaced out due to time dilation. • events which were simultaneous before an acceleration are at different times afterwards (due to the relativity of simulataneity), • events pass through the light cone lines due to the progression of proper time, but not due to the change of views caused by the accelerations,and • the world line always remains within the future and past light cones of the current event.
Changing views of spacetime along the world line of a rapidly accelerating observer.In this animation, the dashed line is the world line of a particle whose view of spacetime is being illustrated. The balls are placed at regular intervals of proper time along the world line. The solid diagonal lines are the light cones for the observer's current event, and intersect at that event. The small dots are other arbitrary events in the spacetime. For the observer's current instantaneous inertial frame of reference, the vertical direction is temporal and the horizontal direction is spatial. The slope of the world line (deviation from being vertical) is the velocity of the particle on that section of the world line. So at a bend in the world line the particle is being accelerated. Note how the view of spacetime changes as current event passes through the accelerations, changing the instantaneous inertial frame of reference. These changes are governed by the Lorentz transformations. Also note that: • the balls on the world line before/after future/past accelerations are more spaced out due to time dilation. • events which were simultaneous before an acceleration are at different times afterwards (due to the relativity of simulataneity), • events pass through the light cone lines due to the progression of proper time, but not due to the change of views caused by the accelerations,and • the world line always remains within the future and past light cones of the current event. Main article: Lorentz transformation An event is an occurrence that can be assigned a single unique time and location in space: It is a "point" in space-time. For example, the explosion of a firecracker is an "event" to a good approximation. We can completely specify an event by its four space-time coordinates: The time of occurrence, and its 3-dimensional spatial location. Suppose we have two systems S and S', whose spatial axes are co-aligned and are moving at a constant velocity (v) with respect to each other along their x axes. If an event has space-time coordinates (t,x,y,z) in system S and (t',x',y',z') in S', and their origins coincide (in other words (0,0,0,0) in S coincides with (0,0,0,0) in S'), then the Lorentz transformation specifies that these coordinates are related in the following way: where If the observer in S sees an object moving along the x axis at velocity w then the observer in the S' system will see the object moving with velocity w' where
This equation can be derived from the space and time transformations above. Notice that if the object is moving at the speed of light in the S system (i.e. w = c), then it will also be moving at the speed of light in the S' system. Also, if both w and v are small with respect to the speed of light, we will recover the intuitive Galilean transformation of velocities: w' = w − v. Mass, momentum, and energyIn addition to modifying notions of space and time, special relativity forces one to reconsider the concepts of mass, momentum, and energy, all of which are important constructs in Newtonian mechanics. Special relativity shows, in fact, that these concepts are all different aspects of the same physical quantity in much the same way that it shows space and time to be interrelated. There are a couple of (equivalent) ways to define momentum and energy in SR. One method uses conservation laws. If these laws are to remain valid in SR they must be true in every possible reference frame. However, if one does some simple thought experiments using the Newtonian definitions of momentum and energy one sees that these quantities are not conserved in SR. One can rescue the idea of conservation by making some small modifications to the definitions to account for relativistic velocities. It is these new definitions which are taken as the correct ones for momentum and energy in SR. Given an object of invariant mass m_0 traveling at velocity u the energy and momentum are given by where γ (the Lorentz factor) is given by and c is the speed of light. The term γ occurs frequently in relativity, and comes from the Lorentz transformation equations. The energy and momentum can be related through the formula which is referred to as the relativistic energy-momentum equation. These equations can be more succinctly stated using the four-momentum Pa and the four-velocity Ua as
which can be viewed as a relativistic analogue of Newton's second law. For velocities much smaller than those of light γ can be approximated using a Taylor series expansion and one finds that Barring the first term in the energy expression (discussed below), these formulas agree exactly with the standard definitions of Newtonian kinetic energy and momentum. This is as it should be, for special relativity must agree with Newtonian mechanics at low velocities. Looking at the above formulas for energy, one sees that when an object is at rest (u = 0 and γ = 1) there is a non-zero energy remaining: This energy is referred to as rest energy. The rest energy does not cause any conflict with the Newtonian theory because it is a constant and, as far as kinetic energy is concerned, it is only differences in energy which are meaningful. Taking this formula at face value, we see that in relativity, mass is simply another form of energy. This formula becomes important when one measures the masses of different atomic nuclei. By looking at the difference in masses, one can predict which nuclei have extra stored energy which can be released by nuclear reactions, providing important information which was useful in the development of the nuclear bomb. The implications of this formula on 20th century life have made it one of the most famous equations in all of science. On massIntroductory physics courses and some older textbooks on special relativity sometimes define a so-called relativistic mass which may lead to the impression that special relativity implies the mass of a body increases as its velocity increases. According to the modern formulation of special relativity, this is incorrect and the mass of an object is independent of any inertial frame, i.e., invariant. In an alternate formulation of SR that is often taught in introduction to the theory, the mass of an object may vary depending on the observer's inertial frame, in the same way that other properties such as its length may do so. Defining such a quantity may sometimes be useful in that doing so simplifies a calculation by restricting it to a specific frame. For example, consider a body with an invariant mass m0 moving at some velocity relative to an observer's reference system. That observer defines the relativistic mass of that body as: Sometimes people claim that the apparent increase of relativistic mass is not uniform and appears twice as large in the direction of travel as tangentially. In order to make that argument plausible, referal is made to the "longitudinal" and "transverse mass" definitions that were used around 1900 and that were based on an inconsistent application of the laws of Newton (they used F=ma for a variable mass). Indeed, such definitions make interpretation as a real increase in mass problematic. However, that has nothing to do with "relativistic mass" and it's easy to see from the above definition that "relativistic" mass has the same insensitivity to direction as rest mass. Note also that the body does not actually become more massive in its proper frame, since the relativistic mass is only different for an observer in a different frame. The only mass that is frame independent is the invariant mass. When using the relativistic mass, the used reference frame should be specified if it isn't already obvious or implied. Physics textbooks sometimes use the relativistic mass as it allows the students to utilize their knowledge of Newtonian physics to gain some intuitive grasp of relativity in their frame of choice (usually their own!). "Relativistic mass" is also consistent with the concepts "time dilation" and "length contraction". Simultaneity and causalitySpecial relativity holds that events that are simultaneous in one frame of reference need not be simultaneous in another frame of reference. ![]()
light cone
The interval AC in the diagram is 'space-like'. I.e. there is a frame of reference in which event A and event C occur simultaneously, separated only in space. However there are also frames in which A precedes C (as shown) and frames in which C precedes A. Barring some way of traveling faster than light, it is not possible for any matter (or information) to travel from A to C or from C to A. Thus there is no causal connection between A and C. The geometry of space-timeSR uses a 'flat' 4-dimensional Minkowski space, which is an example of a space-time. This space, however, is very similar to the standard 3 dimensional Euclidean space, and fortunately by that fact, very easy to work with. The differential of distance(ds) in cartesian 3D space is defined as: where (dx1,dx2,dx3) are the differentials of the three spatial dimensions. In the geometry of special relativity, a fourth dimension, time, is added, with units of c, so that the equation for the differential of distance becomes: In many situations it may be convenient to treat time as imaginary (e.g. it may simplify equations), in which case t in the above equation is replaced by i.t', and the metric becomes If we reduce the spatial dimensions to 2, so that we can represent the physics in a 3-D space We see that the null geodesics lie along a dual-cone: ![]()
defined by the equation or Which is the equation of a circle with r=c*dt. If we extend this to three spatial dimensions, the null geodesics are continuous concentric spheres, with radius = distance = c*(+ or -)time. ![]()
This null dual-cone represents the "line of sight" of a point in space. That is, when we look at the stars and say "The light from that star which I am receiving is X years old.", we are looking down this line of sight: a null geodesic. We are looking at an event ![]()
The cone in the -t region is the information that the point is 'receiving', while the cone in the +t section is the information that the point is 'sending'. The geometry of Minkowski space can be depicted using Minkowski diagrams, which are also useful in understanding many of the thought-experiments in special relativity. Relativity and unifying ElectromagnetismUsing the relativistic transformations it can be shown that the magnetic field generated by a current in a wire disappears and becomes a purely electrostatic field in a particular comoving frame of reference. This is due to the lack of simultaneity of the charges entering and leaving a wire and the Lorentz contraction of the wire and the moving charges. The wire and current ends up with a net charge and no magnetic field. The converse is also obviously true; so an electrostatic effect may appear to be caused by magnetism to a different observer. It can therefore be seen that electrostatics and magnetism are simply two sides of the same coin, hence the term Electromagnetism. It turns out that they can be mathematically described by a four-vector. Related topics
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