Physics 107 Lectures: lecture 18 goals and outline

LECTURE 18
goals and outline

lecture title

Gedanken Experiments on Simultaneity and Length

text pages

Ch 9, pp 106-111.

lecture goals

To get the hang of Gedanken Experiments, especially that each one is set up to illustrate just one implication of Einstein's second postulate of relativity.
To think about light, and especially how the fact that it travels very fast doesn't mean that it takes zero time to reach our eyes from some event, even an event very close to our eyes.
To understand why simultaneity is relative between two inertial reference frames.
To understand why length is relative between two inertial reference frames.

outline of lecture

1. Relativity
2. Light
3. Gedanken Experiment 1: Simultaneity
4. Gedanken Experiment 2: Length

quote

But the creative principle resides in mathematics. In a certain sense, therefore, I hold it true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed.

-- Albert Einstein

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Please email any questions, comments, or suggestions to Professor Bernice Durand, bdurand@theory3.physics.wisc.edu.
Revised October 13, 1997.

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