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LECTURE 16
     goals and outline

lecture title

    Light Waves are Different: the Famous Missing Gamma Factor

text pages

    Ch 8, pp 90-100.

lecture goals

  • To master the math of the race between two swimmers in a stream with a current, or two light beams in a material medium such as the luminiferous aether, with an aether wind due to motion through the aether.
  • To introduce and grasp the math of the gamma factor, both algebraically and geometrically.
  • To learn the value of a null experiment, such as the Michelson/Morley experiment.

outline of lecture

    1. A Property of All Waves in Media

    2. Race of Swimmers, or Light Beams

    3. The Gamma Factor

    4. The Michelson-Morley NULL Experiment

quote

Physical discoveries in the future are a matter of the sixth decimal place.

-- Albert Michelson

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Please email any questions, comments, or suggestions to Professor Bernice Durand, bdurand@theory3.physics.wisc.edu.

Revised October 8, 1997.


Content © 1997, Bernice Durand
Images and layout © 1997, Shane Hamilton