Welcome to the Home Page for Physics 495
Special Relativity

A more detailed description of the intended syllabus for the class is found at this link.
I will NOT be following any particular text; therefore, I have not chosen any one book, but will mention several in class as we go along.
However, do see the reading list of books useful for various topics that we will discuss.
As well, there are (or will be) quite a few (Acrobat-readable) handouts made available on this website, which are all listed below. Parts of the course will follow them quite closely.

The following are some general comments about the structure of the course.

• My office is Room 168, and I am happy to talk with you about the course material at any time that you can find me in there. I intend to always be there---for regular office hours---from 2 pm until 4 pm on Mondays and Wednesdays.
• There will be regular homework assignments, over the material being discussed.
  This will be once per week during most weeks, although not (quite) every week.
  There is a grader for the class. His name is Adrian Chapman, and he will have an office hour each week, for questions and/or comments, in the department lobby, on Monday afternoons from 3:30 pm until class begins. If there is some need to meet him at other times, you can email him by using this link.
• 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 Maxwell's equations written in terms of partial differential equations will be important. Some background with analytical mechanics (junior level) is desirable.
• Homework Assignments will be posted here as they are assigned.
  Homework is due at the beginning of class on the day in question!
  All assignments, and their solutions, will be .pdf files, readable via Adobe Acrobat.
• Exams: 
  • There will be an exam near the end of the first 6 weeks of the semester,
  • one toward the end of 12 weeks, after the so-called midterm period,
  • and a final exam, which will probably be optional.

1. Homework No. 1: due Wednesday, 23 January.
   After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.
2. Homework No. 2: due Wednesday, 30 January.
   After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.
3. Homework No. 3: due Wednesday, 6 February.
   After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.
4. Homework No. 4: due Wednesday, 13 February.
   After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.
5. Homework No. 5: due Wednesday, 20 February.
   After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.
6. Homework No. 6: due Wednesday, 27 February.
   After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.
7. Homework No. 7: due Wednesday, 6 March.
   After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.
8. Homework No. 8: due Wednesday, 20 March.
   After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.
9. Homework No. 9: due Monday, 1 April.
   After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.
10. Homework No. 10: due Monday, 15 April.
    After class on the due date, the solution may be accessed from this link.
11. Homework No. 11: due Wednesday, 1 May.
    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. some Minkowski Diagrams
   • for a Limousine NOT breaking down the doors of a Garage;
   • for the Twin Paradox.
3. Summary of (3-dimensional) boost transformations for 4-vectors, and also 3-velocity, 3-acceleration, and 3-force.
4. Notes on the Geometry of spacetime, and associated Vector, Tensor, and Matrix Notation and Conventions.
5. Notes on general transformation relationships of vectors, metrics, linear operators, etc.
6. Tangent Vectors and Differential forms: Geometrical requirements
7. Affine Connections and Curvature Tensors are discussed in this handout.
8. Groups and Algebras: a listing of useful words and defintions.
9. Notes on the Rotation Group
10. Notes on the Poincaré Lie Algebra, its commutators and something about representations.
11. Notes on the behavior of an object moving with constant acceleration, as it measures it.
12. Lorentz Transformation Laws for Electromagnetic Fields, and also E, B, F, and A for a moving, charged particle, all from Coulomb's law
13. Notes on Spinors:
    • for 495;
    • for 570.
14. Notes on Magnetic Monopoles, and also a copy of a paper by C.N. Yang on magnetic monopoles.

Some interesting links to other webpages.

• A good set of (Postscript or pdf) notes for an (undergraduate) course at Brigham Young University on   Electromagnetism via differential forms which is 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 James 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 one of the movies that I liked the best, which may be found at the following link below.
  The movies are much more easily understood if one uses the cursor to move the play symbol across the screen, where one has control of how fast the movie runs:
  • for a fast-moving Rubik's Cube moving toward you.
  • for a fast-moving Train moving toward you.

Albert Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore, both Nobel Prize winners

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Last updated/modified: 9 January, 2013