Iconoclastic physics professor and artist Andrzej Dragan presents a unique feast of knowledge on special relativity in a straightforward, progressive manner that even a savvy high school student could follow. Encompassing the derivation of Lorentz transformations to Wigner rotations and Thomas precession; from non-inertial accelerated reference frames to event horizons, curved spacetime, and static black holes; and from the Doppler effect to relativistic structure of electromagnetism, Dragan peels back the enigmatic layers of modern physics to enable a deeper understanding of Einstein's groundbreaking theory. Comprehensive and elegantly written, full of insightful apparent paradoxes and riddles, but without any complicated math, Dragan's unique overview takes the reader well beyond the orthodox verses of standard Special Relativity to the bleeding edge of "new-fangled" superluminal apocrypha and their relation to Quantum Theory. The book is based on a course on Special Relativity and acclaimed by students taught by Dragan who is a leader of a research group on Relativistic Quantum Information theory at the University of Warsaw and the National University of Singapore.
Author(s): Andrzej Dragan
Publisher: World Scientific Publishing
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 204
City: London
Contents
Preface (Before Consuming)
About the Author
1. Let There Be (The Speed of) Light
1.1 Lorentz Transformation à la Minkowski
1.2 Motion as a Hyperbolic Rotation of Spacetime
1.3 Can Anything Move Faster than Light?
1.4 Spacetime Interval and the Causal Order
1.5 Questions
1.6 Exercises
2. Consequences of Time Dilation and Lorentz Contraction
2.1 Relativity of Simultaneity
2.2 Time Dilation and Lorentz Contraction
2.3 Paradox of a Truck Inside a Tunnel
2.4 Is Lorentz Contraction Real?
2.5 The Paradox that Started It All
2.6 The Twin Paradox
2.7 The Unbearable Loopiness of Being?
2.8 Elvis Lives!
2.9 The Speed Walker Paradox
2.10 Velocity Transformation in Wonderland
2.11 Questions
2.12 Exercises
3. Hard Life in 3D
3.1 Lorentz Transformation in 3D
3.2 The Hardest Problem in Special Relativity
3.3 Thomas Precession
3.4 Brute Force Approach to the Hardest Problem in Special Relativity
3.5 Questions
3.6 Exercises
4. Quantum Principle of Relativity
4.1 All Inertial Observers
4.2 Does the Devil Play Dice?
4.3 Why Does the Devil Play Dice?
4.4 Superposition ofWorld Lines
4.5 1 + 3-Dimensional Case
4.6 Questions
4.7 Exercises
5. Hard Bodies
5.1 Every Stick Has Two Ends (But a Slingshot Has Three)
5.2 A Pole Vaulter Runs into a Barn
5.3 Two Squares Paradox
5.4 Block on a Table with a Hole
5.5 Internal Reaction Forces
5.6 Questions
5.7 Exercises
6. Optical Illusions
6.1 Doppler Effect
6.2 What a Drag—Light in a Moving Medium
6.3 A Circle in the Shape of a Sausage
6.4 Sphere of a Shape of a Sphere
6.5 Questions
6.6 Exercises
7. Relativistic Dynamics
7.1 Four-Vectors
7.2 Four-Velocity
7.3 One-Line Solution to the Hardest Problem in Special Relativity
7.4 Energy andMomentum
7.5 E = mc2
7.6 May the (Relativistic) Force Be With You
7.7 Massless Particles and Planck’s Postulate
7.8 Superluminal Particles
7.9 When the Forbidden Becomes Permissible
7.10 Questions
7.11 Exercises
8. Non-Inertial Frames
8.1 The Clock Postulate — Reexamined
8.2 Uniformly Accelerated Motion
8.3 Bell’s Paradox
8.4 The Geometry of a Uniformly Accelerated Frame
8.5 Gravitational Time Dilation
8.6 Rindler Transformation
8.7 Free Motion According to the Rindler Observer
8.8 Hungry, Hungry Astronauts
8.9 The Twin Paradox According to the Accelerated Twin
8.10 The Energy of a Free Particle
8.11 The Principle of Equivalence
8.12 Questions
8.13 Exercises
9. Curved Spacetimes
9.1 Spacetime Metric
9.2 A Free Fall in Curved Spacetime
9.3 Maximum Damage Induced by a Stinking Egg
9.4 Black Hole
9.5 Testing the Principle of Equivalence
9.6 Falling Under the Event Horizon
9.7 Questions
9.8 Exercises
10. Relativity of Electrodynamics
10.1 Prelude
10.2 Electromagnetic Derivation of the Lorentz Transformation
10.3 A Relativistic Formulation of Electrodynamics
10.4 Field Transformations
10.5 Lorentz Force and Newton’s Third Law
10.6 The Energy and Momentum of Fields
10.7 Electrodynamics vs the Principle of Equivalence
10.8 Epilogue
10.9 Questions
10.10 Exercises
Bibliography
Index
