Welcome to the Home Page for Physics 495
Special Relativity

• more detailed descriptions of the anticipated syllabus for the class,
• a reading list of books useful for learning this material,
• handouts to supplement the texts, which will be Acrobat-readable (*.pdf) files that you should print out; parts of the course will follow these closely, since the available texts do not cover everything we will want to discuss,
• homework assignments and exam announcements, along with the solutions to homework and examinations,
• links to other webpages relevant to the class.

Because of the variety of students expected in the class I will be pleased if everyone in the class will assist me in deciding what material we will discuss, and what level. The first version of such decisions has been put in the more detailed description already mentioned above.
The following are some general comments about the anticipated structure of the course.

• There will be regular homework assignments, over whatever material we are discussing, once per week during most weeks, although not all.
     There is a grader for the class. His name is Xuefeng Zhang, and he will have office hours for questions and/or comments each Friday, from 1-2 pm, in his office, in Room 38. If there is some need to meet him at other times, you can email him from this link.
• Third Quarter Project: Each student will select from a list a project to be completed during the third quarter of the semester.
  That list is now ready, and is available here. The due date is the class just prior to Thanksgiving, 25 November.
• The books by Wolfgang Rindler, "Relativity: Special, General, and Cosmological" and by Bernard Schutz, "A First Course in General Relativity," should be acquired by everyone. I will consider them as "the texts."
    Quite a large selection of other relevant books are listed on the additional reading list, which also has comments about them.
• The material on relativity in a standard general physics text, such as the one written by Halliday, Resnick, and/or someone else, is a reasonable essential prerequisite. Since we will be extending that material to 4 dimensions and also to electromagnetism, some ability with linear algebra, including surely matrix multiplication, and also the forms of Maxwell's equations written in terms of partial differential equations will be important. Some background with analytical mechanics (junior level) is desirable.

Homework Assignments

All assignments, and their solutions, are .pdf files, readable via Adobe Acrobat.
 
1. Homework No. 1: due Wednesday, 2 September.
   After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.
2. Homework No. 2: due Wednesday, 9 September.
   After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.
3. Homework No. 3: due Wednesday, 16 September.
   After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.
4. Homework No. 4: due Wednesday, 30 September.
   After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.
5. Homework No. 5: due Wednesday, 7 October.
   After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.
6. Homework No. 6: due Wednesday, 14 October.
   After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.
7. There will be an exam on Wednesday, 21 October. You may bring with you any personally hand-written notes you like.
   Solutions are now posted at this link.
8. Homework No. 7: due Monday, 9 November.
   After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.

Handouts of additional material, [in .pdf-format].

1. Minkowski diagrams, some help and examples.
2. Summary of (3-dimensional) boost transformations for 4-vectors, and also 3-velocity, 3-acceleration, and 3-force.
3. Notes on the Geometry of spacetime, and associated Vector, Tensor, and Matrix Notation and Conventions.
4. Groups and Algebras
5. Tangent Vectors and Differential forms: Geometrical requirements
6. Notes on the Rotation Group
7. Notes on the Poincaré Lie Algebra, its commutators and something about representations.
8. Lorentz Transformation Laws for Electromagnetic Fields, and also E, B, F, and A for a moving, charged particle, all from Coulomb's law
9. Notes on Spinors.
10. Notes on Magnetic Monopoles, and also a copy of a paper by C.N. Yang on magnetic monopoles.

• A good set of (Postscript or pdf) notes for an (undergraduate) course at Brigham Young University on   Electromagnetism via differential forms which looks quite interesting, although only in 3-dimensional space.
• The differences between using light rays to see fast moving objects and their measurements using correlated observers that constitute a single reference frame were only discovered fairly recently.
  One by Victor Weisskopf is, I believe, the most clear of the articles published around that time.
  However, the article by Terrell was the original publication on the subject, although there was one around the same time which considered only spheres, by Roger Penrose.
  An article by Scott and Viner, in the American Journal of Physics, explains very clearly many more of the details necessary if the object is not so very far away.
  Some interesting movies have been made, which give a more visual perspective, very quickly but in some detail, these phenomena whereby 3-dimensional objects appear to rotate and are "warped" if close enough, have been made by Leo Brewin at Monash University in Australia.
  I have copied two of the movies that I liked the best, which may be found at the links below:
  • for a fast-moving Rubik's Cube moving toward you, and
  • for a fast-moving steam locomotive moving past you.

Albert Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore, both Nobel Prize winners

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Last updated/modified: 26 August, 2009