Special relativity Definition and 1000 Threads

Hello! I am trying to make some calculations on the Special theory of relativity over a practical example, considering the time dilation, but I may (more than likely..) be doing something wrong (probably with my assumptions). I would appreciate any comment on it. The example is that of a rocket...

I've also attached my attempt as a pdf file. My main issue seems to be I only get one A partial term. Any help would be appreciated.

The attempt is above

The attempt is above

Since for the two events of Samir starting the stopwatch, and the stopwatch reaching 10.0s, Samir and his stopwatch are stationary from his own frame of reference, I said it was the proper time and that delta t0 = 10s. Then the speed of the moving frame of reference was 0.6c. I thought placing...

Hmm the mass of a hadron is an example of the verification of special relativity.The total mass of the quarks isn't equal to the mass of a hadron at rest frame.But quarks are moving very fast due to strong interaction and they gain mass (mass-energy equivalence)

Hi. In a current carrying conductor because of special relativity amount of protons and electrons differ so we get an electric field or as we call it magnetic field. So if magnetic field is just an electric field how is it that the charge has to move so that magnetic field would exert a force on...

Homework Statement A particle with mass M and speed v along the positive x-axis hits a stationary mass m. Two particles, each with mass µ, emerge from the collision, at angles with respect to the x-axis. (a) Write the equation for conservation of the 4-momenta, for arbitrary angles θ_1, θ_2 of...

Greg Bernhardt submitted a new blog post Fermi-Walker Transport in Kerr Spacetime Continue reading the Original Blog Post.

The videos from Veritasium explaining permanent static magnets and electromagnets were quite good I thought… But they have me a little confused with regard to the origins of magnetic fields generated by an electric current as opposed to a permanent static magnet from say iron. 1. An...

Suppose we take a charged particle and a magnet and place them at some particular distance apart .Now let's take 2 frame of reference. [the charged particle and the magnet are in rest with respect to each other through out the whole event]{both of the frames are inertial} frame(a): this frame...

Greg Bernhardt submitted a new blog post Fermi-Walker Transport in Schwarzschild Spacetime Continue reading the Original Blog Post.

I saw this question on special relativity on the internet: "A spaceship traveling to Alpha Centauri, at 0.95C it takes 4.5 years to get there as measured on Earth.how long does it seems to the spaceship passengers?" the answer was 1.4 years (Lorentz factor of 3.2). this answer makes no sense...

Greg Bernhardt submitted a new blog post How to Study Fermi-Walker Transport in Minkowski Spacetime Continue reading the Original Blog Post.

Hello there. In class, our teacher solved one question and asked us what did we wrong specifically in the solution because there were two sets of them. Two spaceships are moving through +x and -x and there is a distance L between them. From one observer which is stationary in the line of L/2...

I had posted a similar question on another forum but didn't get much of a discussion. I'm interested to know what people here think. So consider a spaceship midway between stars A and B and initially at rest in the reference frame of the stars. The ship then accelerates away from A to some...

I'm trying to solve this problem but I get a different answer depending on which observer I solve it for. For the observer in the cloud, the parallel light has traveled 2.294cs, but this is only 0.23cs in front of the ship. 0.23 cs is only 0.086cs in the perspective of the ship due to length...

Homework Statement A charge q1 is at rest at the origin, and a charge q2 moves with speed βc in the x-direction, along the line z = b. For what angle θ shown in the figure will the horizontal component of the force on q1 be maximum? What is θ in the β ≈ 1 and β ≈ 0 limits? (see image) Homework...

Hello everyone, Any object has a gravitational potential energy as a function of the distance from the Earth (R). Does this energy depend only on the rest mass of the object; or one must take into account it's relativistic mass? In other words, if we imagine two identical bullets on the top...

Hi everyone! I have a problem with one thing. Let's consider the Lorentz group and the vicinity of the unit matrix. For each ##\hat{L}## from such vicinity one can prove that there exists only one matrix ##\hat{\epsilon}## such that ##\hat{L}=exp[\hat{\epsilon}]##. If we take ##\epsilon^{μν}##...

my current skills in math are differential eq and linear algebra... and I am about to start reading Feynman lectures of physics and planning to read all John Baez's recommended books.. after reading Feynman's, what would be the next best thing to do? learn more math? or jump already to core...

I am trying to understand why maxwell equations are correct in any reference frames? While i started to understand of his laws of physics a bit i could not imagine why he uses hyperbolic functions such as coshw instead of spherical ones in position and time relation between moving frames...

Is there any evidence that objects moving increasingly closer to light speed gain gravitational mass, in the sense of attracting surrounding (and not co-moving) masses more strongly, rather than solely possessing the increased inertial mass implied by the greater force necessary to...

Suppose an observer (O) sees a traveler (T1) pass by at time t=0, moving a speed 3c/5. Five years later (according to O), T1 returns. If we assume that T1 traveled at 3c/5 for half the journey and instantaneously reversed direction, returning at the same speed, we can calculate that T1 aged only...

Based on the exponential growth of time dilation 0.0 - 1.0 if given the radius of an object how do you calculate the mass of the object? Time dilation is a function of gravity. Which can be thought of as escape velocity from a gravitational field. So if you have to achieve .866 c to escape...

Homework Statement I am currently stuck on a problem as shown below. My confusion really come from the fact that I can never seem to understand the difference between proper time and time dilation. As in some books they seem to mean the same thing and never give a clear indication Homework...

In several special relativity textbooks, I have read that special relativity only deals with observations made in inertial frames, and that it makes no predictions about observations made in non-inertial frames, and that only general relativity deals with non-inertial frames through the...

Hello everyone, By considering the effects of the gravitational time dilation the speed of the inner stars must be higher for the local observer than for the external one. So why the gravitational time dilation can not potentially explain the galaxy rotation curve? I already read that the...

I would like to know if there are any Physics Instructors or Professors who may believe that Queuing Theory as well as Relativity Theory may be relevant to CPE where communications platforms are moving at relativistic velocities with respect to (wrt) each other?

Hey everyone! So, I just finished my 2nd year intro to SR course, we spent most of the term on Taylor expansions for relativistic corrections vs concepts. I’ve watched a crash course video and a documentary on SR and I do somewhat understand the thought experiment involved with respect to...

So let us say that there are 3 separate alien species that somehow speak and write the same language. Let us say that 2 of these have always lived and died in their spaceships/asteriod ... going at speeds close to that of light. Alien species 3. A3 leaves behind a message saying that at time t0...

Hi everyone, I have a question that can't solve. Does exist a lagrangian for the relativistic angular momentum (AM)? I can't even understand the question because it has no sense for me... I mean, the lagrangian is a scalar function of the system(particle,field,...), it isn't a function FOR the...

So, I am confused about the following.I learned in high school and in my first year of university that there is something called time dilation that observers observe that time is slower for objects that are moving faster. As in if there were two initially synchronized clocks that you could...

Homework Statement Two images are attached. The first image details the problem. The second image has an x',y' coordinate system depiction of the problem. Homework Equations The total energy of a particle is defined as E = mc^2, with m = γ*m_0. The Attempt at a Solution If the x', y'...

Homework Statement Homework Equations (1) E2 = p2c2 + m02c4 (2) E = γm0c2 (3) E = Eγ1 - Eγ2 (4) p = E / c (5) E = hf (6) λ = c / f The Attempt at a Solution a) Using eqn (1), rearranged p = (E - m0c2) / c , I obtained 2.9 MeV c-1. Not sure if I have the right answer here as I...

Given that one or both inertial frames must have been subject to acceleration at some point; resulting in an imbalance of application between the two inertial frames, why does the consequential effect of general relativity not feature in calculations. Surely, as such, neither observer's...

Hi, Do we obtain the same escape velocity equation: Ve = sqrt(2GM/r) using both Newtonian and Relativistic approach?

The Lorentz transformations are mathematically simple. I had always imagined they could be easily derived. I however just found out from another PF thread that this is not so. Their originators Lorentz and Poincaré simply stated them without derivation. And the "proofs" I have seen to date have...

For a null particle, ds^2 = 0, Timelike, ds^2 >0, spacelike, ds^2 < 0, how would you characterize the motion of each particle?

Hello everyone, I'm studying physics as an undergraduate and I'm currently taking the course special relativity. But sadly I'm not too big a fan of the book we are using for the course. So I was wondering what are the best books you know of regarding special relativity for undergraduates.

I'm writing a mathematical paper on time dilation. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to incorporate math into the topic? I'm considering applying a Loedel diagram. The emphasis needs to be on the math, and not the physical aspects, though they can be introduced through the use of math. The...

Homework Statement We observe an experimentalist moving by with 4-velocity ##u^\mu## and a particle zipping by with 4-momentum ##p^\mu##. Show that magnitude of the particle's 3-momentum as seen by the experimentalist is given by $$ |\vec p| = \left [ (p \cdot u)^2 + (p \cdot p)^2 \right ]...

Homework Statement I am reading through Griffiths' Electrodynamics, and I have come to the scenario in the Relativity chapter where in an inertial reference frame ##S##, we have a wire, with positive charges (linear density ##\lambda##) moving to the right at speed ##v##, and negative charges...

Is it possible to derive the Lorentz transformation from time dilation and length contraction? If so, how should I start? I know how to derive it while considering 4 scenarios finding values of A, B,D,E in x'=Ax+Bt t'=Dx+Et and the transformation is: x'=(x-vt)/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)...

I have an exercise: A distant camera snaps a photograph of a speeding bullet (speed v) with length b in its rest frame. Behind the bullet and parallel to its path is a meter stick, at rest with respect to the camera. The direction to the camera is an angle $\alpha$ from the direction of the...

Starting from the following definition of stress-energy tensor for a perfect fluid in special relativity : $${\displaystyle T^{\mu \nu }=\left(\rho+{\frac {p}{c^{2}}}\right)\,v^{\mu }v^{\nu }-p\,\eta ^{\mu \nu }\,}\quad(1)$$ with ##v^{\nu}=\dfrac{\text{d}x^{\nu}}{\text{d}\tau}## and...

From his original thesis, Einstein said light speed is always constant (c). There is very clear evidence for this. Every ray of light moves in the “stationary coordinate system” with the same velocity c, the velocity being independent of the condition whether this ray of light is emitted by a...

1. Homework Statement [/B] This is a problem that was in my Physics HW. Two powerless rockets are on a collision course. The rockets are moving with speeds of 0.800c and 0.600c and are initially ## 2.52 × 10^{12} ## m apart as measured by Liz, an Earth observer, as shown in Figure P1.59. Both...

Although I thought that I understand special relativity enough, I cannot now clearly answer on the following question: What is the most direct derivation, why momentum in special relativity is ##p=\gamma m v##, where ##v## is velocity of the rocket? Let us assume that Lorentz equations are...

Einstein's equivalence principle states that: The sets of inertial frames in the real world that correspond to (portions of) the ideal set of inertial frames discussed in special relativity consist of freely falling local frames. In other words,can we say that since all the local frames are in...