Relativity
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Lynn Umbarger 04/28/2005
Topics (46 slides)
■ Copernicus (1543)
– The universe was heliocentric
– But everything moved in perfect circles
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The state of physics up to the
turn of the 20th century
■ The “Æther” (ether) was then proposed
– A flexible substance enough to penetrate
everything, yet rigid enough to be a medium for the
high speed of light
■ An explanation
– Lorentz proposed that space shrinks (or contracts)
in the direction of travel through the ether by a
factor of:
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The Problem
(at the turn of the century)
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The Problem
(at the turn of the century)
■ Newton, who created the Inertial Reference
Frame (constant velocity), said it extended
indefinitely, across the universe
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Einstein’s solution in 1905
(On The Electrodynamics of Moving
Bodies)
http://astro.physics.sc.edu/selfpacedunits/Unit56.html
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Simultaneity
http://astro.physics.sc.edu/selfpacedunits/Unit56.html
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Simultaneity
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The importance of the
relativistic factor (Gamma)
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The Lorentz Transformation
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How does the speed of light
affect our experience with
time?
■ When we are rest, we are actually
traveling in the time dimension at the
speed of light
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How does the speed of light
affect our experience with
space?
■ When the two reference frames are rest
relative to each other, their time
dimensions are parallel to each other and
perpendicular their respective space
dimensions (orthogonal)
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The Lorentz Contraction on Time and
Space
V=
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The Addition of Velocities
■ The reason for what the resting observer
saw:
– The observer would see a foreshortened bus
– The clocks at the back and front of the bus
would be observed as very much out of synch
with each other, and more importantly, out
synch with the observer’s
– The observer would never agree, given the
above conditions, that the ball was traveling
as fast as the person that threw it believed it
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was going
The Addition of Velocities
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Relative Mass
(Einstein runs into trouble)
B A
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Relative Mass
(Einstein runs into trouble)
A B
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Relative Mass
(Gamma to the rescue!)
B A
λ
■ How about using Gamma again?
E = mc2
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End of Special Relativity
■ Other effects of Special Relativity
– Relativistic Energy
■ Energy gains at higher velocities
– Relativistic Momentum
■ Momentum gains at higher velocities
– Relativistic Aberration
■ How the surrounding star field would appear at higher velocities
– Causality
■ Cause precedes effect as a function of the speed of light
– Light Cones
■ Tool used to show causality and the limit of c
– Minkowski Space
■ A mathematical “trick” to make space-time coordinate
manipulation a little easier 46
General Relativity
The Motivation
■ Einstein sought to extend Special Relativity to
phenomena including acceleration
■ He wondered if he could modify Newtonian gravity to fit
into SR
■ But Newtonian gravity was (instantaneous) action-at-a-
distance and it was a force
■ And Galileo (and before) understood gravity to
accelerate all different masses at the same rate
(Universality of Free Fall (UFF) 32 ft./sec sec)
■ Einstein thought if F=ma, and ‘a’ is a constant when ‘m’
varies, then how can ‘F’ vary identically with ‘m’ in the
case of gravity?
– Is it really that smart
– Is it really that fast, exceeding the speed of light?
■ Newton said if the Sun were to disappear in an instant,47
the Earth would immediately fly (tangent) out of its
General Relativity
The Equivalence Principle
■ In 1908 Einstein had another break through via one of his
“thought experiments”:
– Gravitational mass, the property of an object that couples
it with a gravitational field, and Inertial mass, the property
of an object that hinders its acceleration, were identical to
each other
– A reference frame in free fall was indistinguishable from a
reference frame in the void of outer space (or in the
absence of a gravitational field)
– A reference frame, in the void of outer space, being
accelerated ‘up’, was indistinguishable from a reference
frame at rest on the surface of the Earth
■ We can no longer tell the difference between being at rest or
being accelerated
■ Einstein’s new reference frames were now ‘safe’ from effects 48
of acceleration and/or gravity (but they were no longer
General Relativity
Identifying the Gravitational
Field
■ Next step was to identify the gravitational field
through field equations (but not as a force)
■ Since acceleration was motion, and motion affects
time and space, so must gravity affect time and space
■ In 1912 Einstein realized the the Lorentz
Transformation will not apply to this generalized
setting
■ He also realized that the gravitational field equations
were bound to be non-linear and that the Equivalence
Principle would only hold locally
■ He said: “If all accelerated systems are equivalent,
then Euclidean geometry cannot hold up in all of
them” 49
General Relativity
Einstein Revisits Geometry
■ With the help of his good friend
Grossman, Einstein researches the
works of:
– Gauss – Theory of surface geometry
– Reimann - Manifold geometry
– Ricci, Levi-Cevita – Tensor calculus and
differential geometry
– Christoffel – Covariant differentiation or
coordinate-free differential calculus
■ Einstein realized that the foundations
(and newly developed aspects) of
geometry have a physical significance 50
General Relativity
Space-Time is Curved
■ The paths of free-bodies define what we mean
by straight in 4-dimensional space-time
■ And if the observed free-bodies deviate from a
constant velocity, it must mean that space-
time itself, in that locality, is non-linear or
curved
■ In any and every locally Lorentz (inertial)
frame, the laws of SR must hold true
■ The only things which can define the
geometric structure of space-time are the
paths of free-bodies (the Earth or an apple)
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General Relativity
The Consequences
■ Euclidean inertial reference frames are
abandoned
■ Only a locally-inertial coordinate system for
extremely small, tangent pieces of flat space-
time (Minkowski) can survive as a reference
frame
■ Reference frames are now in a free-fall
■ Objects in a free-fall follow straight lines in 4-d
space-time known as “Geodesics”
■ In fact, the shortest distance between two
events in space-time is a geodesic, regardless
of how curved the space-time is in between
these two events 52
General Relativity
Understanding Geodesics
■ A geodesic is the straightest line one can travel through space or
across a surface
■ However in one dimension lower, this “straight line” (or its
shadow) can appear to be curved
■ On curved or spherical surfaces, geodesics are part of a “Great
Circle”
– An airliner that departs from San Francisco for Tokyo, heads
northwest in a straight path to get there. When this path is
traced-out on a 2-d map of the Pacific Ocean (or manifold), it
appears as an arc or curve
– When in an airliner heading west in a straight line through 3-d
space, one can see its 2-d shadow deflect north and south
across ridges and valleys on the surface of the Earth; the
airliner’s 3-d path is a geodesic
■ So to, does the Earth travel in a geodesic through 4-d space-time
– It appears to travel in a circle (or ellipse) in the lower 3-d space,
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but in 4-d space-time it never completes a circuit because when
General Relativity
Tensors
■ Lorentz Transformations can no longer be used
■ In order to perform measurements now, one needs to
“parallel transport “ vectors from free falling reference
frames to other reference frames, along geodesics
■ Tensors are the tool of choice to perform these
translations
– Tensors are mathematical “machines” that take in
one or more vectors (say, tangent to an event in
space-time) and put out one or more vectors at
another event in space-time
– If during translation, the vector(s) gets stretched, re-
directed or torsion is applied (twisted); then the
tensor must output this result (linearly) as: another
vector, scalar, or even another tensor
■ If one pokes a toy gyroscope in a linear fashion (torque);54
the gyro will eventually re-align itself in a different
General Relativity
Einstein’s Tensors
■ Einstein’s success in General Relativity was attributable to his
use of various tensors to describe his gravitational field
equations. In addition to his own, the Einstein Tensor, he used
the following tensors:
■ Riemann Curvature Tensor, which was made up of:
– Ricci Tensor – which curls or curves up in the presence of
energy/matter
– Weyl Tensor - which is similar to the the electromagnetic-field tensor
and as a result, it can be used in the Maxwell equations as “medium”
to propagate gravity as a wave (at the speed of light) across the
voids of space. Also, this tensor only curls locally in the presence of
a spinning mass (frame-dragging)
■ Stress-Energy (or Energy-Momentum) Tensor
– This tensor represents the source of gravity, the distribution and flow
of energy and its momentum
■ Metric Tensor 55
– Einstein’s “canvas” on which these other tensors will interact. It is
General Relativity
Gravitational Field Equations
Einstein’s Gravitational Field Equation:
Lumbarge@ford.com
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