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LECTURE 21
     goals and outline

lecture title

    Spacetime Diagrams

text pages

    This lecture is not covered in the text. Parts of it are on the "Albert/Henry" video in the Physics Library.

lecture goals

  • To master what is meant by 3+1dimensional spacetime and how we depict motion through spacetime.
  • To master the Albert/Henry video, especially the beautiful spacetime diagrams of the gamma effects.
  • To see and understand the lightcone.
  • To see why Einstein would have called this the Theory of Invariants instead of the Theory of Relativity.

outline of lecture

    1. Space and Time Gamma Effects

    2. Spacetime

    3. Spacetime Diagrams

quote

Absolute space, in its own nature, without relation to anything external, remains always similar and immovable.

Absolute, true, and mathematical time, in itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external.

-- Isaac Newton, Principia

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

Revised October 19, 1997.


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