Recent content by rethipher

I would actually do that if my professor wasn't known for giving out assignments that require 25 to 30 hours of work each week. lol. She is notorious for it. Plus all my other classes on top of that. If I ever get time, and I remember this post I'll definitely come back to it though, just so I...

I would just like to congratulate myself on studying the most awesome subject ever, finally,which is orbital mechanics.. I've finally found a course that I can work on for hours and hours and hours and never really want to quit working.. that is all folks. Thanks for stopping by and don't forget...

I know that the two equations relating the coordinates come from the geometry of a triangle on the unit circle. What exactly do you mean when you say that I am taking the rotation for granted? In terms of the definition of length, I would just use the fact that {cos\theta = {adj \over hyp}}...

Thank you for the clear explanation, it is definitely helpful. My concern with the importance of notation stems more from me being easily confused by ambiguous notation and unclear notation than anything else. Also, I looked up the set theory book, and it wasn't very expensive to get a used...

I have a simple question about the notation. I want to be more correct with notation, I don't understand exactly what the notation is saying. In regards to a Metric space A metric space is an ordered pair (M,d) where M is a set and d is a metric on M, i.e., a function {{\bf{d: M \times...

Yes, I do understand vector spaces and inner products. I am not however familiar with how inner products induce metrics on inner product spaces. Doing some reading I found that Euclidean geometry's magnitude of a vector is an example of a metric which can be represented by the standard {\bar...

Okay, it has become clear that I may be missing a bit of mathematics background here. Are there any recommendations as to what mathematics subject that relativity comes from would fill this. I'm not sure what math class Minkowski Space time falls under. I have heard of it, but i don't quite know...

Yes, Susskind made the analogy as a regular coordinate transformation which is something I am very familiar with from dynamics and attitude control classes. That's likely where my confusion stems from because I'm trying to make the connection to regular coordinate transformations. As for the...

If it has positive x velocity with respect to the x-t frame I would think it would have a negative x' with respect to it's own frame, but I'm not entirely sure of that.

I know the signs are correct, and from the identity cosh^2 -sinh^2 = 1 that x^2 - t^2 = x'^2 - t'^2. I just don't understand where the transformation came from, like geometrically, or otherwise mathematicallly. It just sort of pops up in his writing.

Preface to my question: I can assure you this is not a homework question of any kind. I simply have a pedagogical fascination with physics outside of my own studies in school. Also, I did a quick search through the forum and could not find a question similar enough to what I want to know, so i...

And 20 minutes later my search for some real discussion turned up nil. Darn, no higgs either. I'm going to go post on facebook and look some more.

I am having a debate with my brother. He reasons that when he turns off the light it is no longer there. You can't see headlights when you turn them off or a lighters light bouncing around the room when you turn off the lighter. So where does it go? He reasons that since you can't see the light...

I'm glad at least some of our race views this as important. This is the epitome of what our curiosity is capable of!

What is a one-to-one correspondence or one to one mapping? I have heard the later term used plenty of times in linear algebra classes I've taken, i.e. there is a one to one mapping from a subspace to another. But I've never really understood what that meant entirely. Are the two above phrasees...