LECTURE 25
goals and outline
The Equivalence Principle: Einstein
This is my favorite lecture of the semester.
lecture title
text pages
Ch 12 pp, 138-144. You may skip the twin paradox paragraphs on p.144.
lecture goals
- We have several steps to master en route to the most elegant insight in physics. We will understand: how being accelerated can't be distinguished from being in a gravitational field.
- How acceleration worldlines incorporate curvature.
- What a geodesic is in any space, including noneuclidean spaces.
- How we live in a 3+1 dimensional curved spacetime, where (curved) geodesics represent gravitational free fall.
- The elegant insight that Dynamics is Kinematics is Mathematics.
- The logical step to a new Principle of Inertia in terms of curved spacetime.
outline of lecture
1. General Relativity
2. The Principle of Equivalence of Acceleration and Gravity
3. Curved Worldlines
4. Geodesics
5. Curved Spacetime
6. Dynamics is Kinematics is Mathematics
7. The New Principle of Inertia
quotes
See next lecture: I forgot to show the quotes for this TV lecture!
Please email any questions, comments, or suggestions to Professor Bernice Durand, bdurand@theory3.physics.wisc.edu.
Revised October 22, 1997.
Images and layout © 1997, Shane Hamilton