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THE ELEMENTS OF RELATIVITY
The Elements of Relativity
David M. Wittman
University of California, Davis
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© David M. Wittman 2018
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
Excerpt on page 28 from Slaughterhouse-five: or the Children’s Crusade,
A Duty Dance with Death (25th Anniversary) by Kurt Vonnegut,
copyright © 1968, 1969 and copyright renewed © 1996, 1997 by
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Used by permission of Dell Publishing, an imprint of
Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
All rights reserved.
First Edition published in 2018
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017962192
ISBN 978–0–19–965863–3 (Hbk.)
ISBN 978–0–19–965864–0 (Pbk.)
DOI 10.1093/oso/9780199658633.001.0001
Printed and bound by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
To Vera, whose love and support has helped me grow so much.
Preface
Having taught the course several times, I gradually learned how to present the
ideas to students effectively:
David Wittman
Davis, California
January 20, 2018
Acknowledgments
This book grew from a course I taught, so I start by thanking people related to
that course. I never would have tried teaching such a course without Will Dawson
as a teaching assistant; I knew I could trust him to do a great job developing
discussion activities, guiding students, challenging my facile explanations, and
helping me shape the course. Jeff Hutchinson performed just as ably in later
iterations of the course; he also corrected mistakes and suggested clarifications
in an initial draft of this book. I also thank the students who suffered through
initial drafts of this book. The honors students who took the course in fall 2013
deserve special mention for constructive exchanges that stimulated me to rewrite
the draft almost from scratch. Four students from that course—Shuhao David
Ke, Olga Ivanova, Dean Watson, and Adam Zufall—read a completely new draft
in fall 2014 and provided useful feedback. Adam Zufall in particular provided
specific and insightful feedback and debated some changes with me.
Outside the context of the course, Chuck Watson deserves special mention for
reading every single line of two separate drafts and providing extremely thorough
and thoughtful feedback. Chuck provided a greatly needed wake-up call that
many sections of an earlier draft were inadequate for beginners, and if the book
now makes sense to them they should thank Chuck for that. Chuck also caught
numerous typos and awkward or ambiguous passages, often suggesting better
phrasing than I came up with myself. My wife, Vera Margoniner, also read some
versions of each chapter and help me clarify the presentation of many points.
I also thank Steve Carlip for providing expert advice on a variety of points in the
later chapters. It is a cliché to write that any remaining errors are my own, but
now I know that the cliché is absolutely true. Each of these people kept me on
track at some point, but I may have veered off track through numerous revisions
since then.
I thank Adam Taylor for the handful of stylish drawings you see in this book;
the less stylish ones are my own. I also thank Vivian Ellinger for making it possible
to work with Adam.
I owe the biggest thanks to my family—Becca, Linus, and most of all Vera—
for supporting me through such a large time commitment. My parents, Linus
and Bonnie Wittman, not only raised me well but also gave freely of their time
and energy in the past few years so I would have more time to focus on the book.
Thanks, geysers!
Contents
3 Galilean Relativity 22
3.1 Motion in two (or more) dimensions 22
3.2 Projectile motion 23
3.3 Principle of relativity 24
Chapter summary 25
Check your understanding: explanations 26
Exercises 26
Problems 26
6 Time Skew 56
6.1 Simultaneity is frame-dependent 56
6.2 Practice with skewed grids 60
6.3 Time skew 65
6.4 Causality 67
Chapter summary 69
Further reading 70
Check your understanding: explanations 70
Exercises 71
Problems 72
15 Potential 191
15.1 Definition of potential 191
15.2 The potential traces slow time 193
15.3 Visualizing the potential 195
Chapter summary 197
Check your understanding: explanations 197
Exercises 198
Problems 199
Contents xv
17 Orbits 222
17.1 Circular orbits 222
17.2 Elliptical orbits 225
17.3 Symmetry of orbits 227
17.4 Slingshot maneuver 229
17.5 Dark matter versus modified gravity 230
17.6 Masses of stars 231
17.7 Extrasolar planets 232
Chapter summary 233
Further reading 234
Check your understanding: explanations 234
Exercises 235
Problems 236
Index 302
Guide to the Reader
Teachers rarely give their students explicit instruction in how to read. The
assumption must be that they learned how to read as children, so we have nothing
to add at this point. I believe this consigns many students to ineffective study
habits; many have never thought explicitly about reading strategies. The fact is
that you should not read a book of ideas straight through like a novel. You should
be engaging in a conversation with the book, identifying the key points and arguing
back until you come to terms with them.
True learning does not happen quickly and easily, so budget plenty of time for Confusion alert
each chapter and perhaps skim its sections first to help you budget wisely. Then
read one section at a time and give yourself time to really think about the concepts. These are posted to sharpen the dis-
Consider taking a break between sections—reading too much in one sitting will tinction between two similar concepts
or words, or between the physics and
reduce your comprehension of the later parts. everyday meanings of a word, or in
When you finish reading a section, thoroughly consider the Check Your other situations where miscommu-
Understanding question before moving on. Use your performance on that question nications are common. These alerts
inoculate you against the most com-
to rate your level of understanding, and keep track of which sections you will need mon sources of miscommunication in
to reread. When rereading a section, focus on the paragraphs and figures that discussing relativity so keep them in
seem most important or most relevant to your difficulties rather than rereading mind not only as you read, but also as
you discuss relativity with others.
uniformly from start to finish. If a point is still unclear after rereading, make
a note to discuss the question with another student or with the instructor to
clarify the concept. Then, make sure to reread the relevant point again after that
discussion to check your new understanding. This is crucial because listening to Think about it
a clear explanation does not necessarily make it stick in your mind, even if you
feel strongly at the time that it will (a phenomenon psychologists call the fluency If you find the main text on a page
illusion). relatively clear and easy to digest, you
should be simultaneously engaged in
At the end of a chapter, check the list of key concepts in the chapter summary relating it to earlier points and to
and ask yourself if you understand them completely. The chapter summary will personal experience; these notes help
come in handy when reviewing or rereading, but do not fool yourself into thinking prompt this engagement, and help
answer questions such as “But how is
that reading—or even memorizing—the summary alone is a substitute for deeply that consistent with...?” In your first
engaged reading. A great way to process the ideas is to close the book and attempt time through any given section, you
to write down the major points yourself. Writing boosts your learning by engaging may have cognitive overload just pro-
cessing the main text. In that case, it
a different set of brain circuits. may be better not to dwell on a Think
Chapter end matter includes both exercises and problems, and the distinction About It note, but make sure to reread
is extremely important. Exercises are straightforward procedures that help you the section later when you are able to
process it on this deeper level.
rehearse concepts and skills. Problems do not come with a well-defined procedure;
you really have to think about the solution. Take rock climbing as an analogy. If
you want to be a good rock climber, you need strong arms so you repeatedly do
chinups, which are straightforward and trivial to describe, but still take practice.
xviii Guide to the Reader
But you also need to practice climbing on real obstacles; this is where the skill of
rock climbing is. Exercises are necessary, but problems develop higher-level skills.
Problems force you to apply your thinking tools to new and unfamiliar situations.
This can be the most difficult part of learning—but also the most rewarding,
because it builds true understanding.
*Optional sections.One of the beauties of science is that everything is connected,
but this is also one of the difficulties of teaching science: where to stop? Sections
marked with asterisks (and boxes, which are smaller) are not absolutely necessary
to understanding the main thread of the course. Students who feel comfortable
with the main thread will benefit from making these additional connections, but
students who need to focus fully on the main thread may skip these boxes at first.
Of course, instructors will vary in their opinion of what is optional, depending
on the length of the term and the level of student preparation; students are
advised to rely on their instructor for detailed guidance. Readers who are teaching
themselves should pay close attention to the asterisks; if an optional topic seems
more confusing than enriching, refocus on the main thread and return to the
optional topic later as desired.
A First Look at Relativity
1
Relativity is a set of remarkable insights into the way space and time work. The
basic notion of relativity, first articulated by Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), explains 1.1 Coordinates and displacement 1
why we do not feel the Earth moving as it orbits the Sun and was successful 1.2 Velocity 3
for hundreds of years. By the turn of the twentieth century, however, it became
1.3 Galilean velocity addition law 4
apparent that Galilean relativity did not provide a complete description of nature,
1.4 Velocity is an arrow 8
particularly at high speeds such as the speed of light. In 1905, Albert Einstein
1.5 Symmetry and the principle
(1879–1955) discovered unexpected relationships between space and time that of relativity 9
allow relativity to work even at high speeds; this is now called special relativity.
Chapter summary 10
Soon after, Hermann Minkowski (1864–1909) found a way to express these
Study advice 10
relationships in terms of the geometry of a single unified entity called spacetime.
Check your understanding:
Einstein initially resisted this point of view but eventually adopted it and pushed it explanations 11
much further in his 1915 general theory of relativity, which explained gravity itself
Exercises 11
in these geometric terms. The insights of general relativity are abstract and help us
Problems 12
understand extreme phenomena such as black holes, but they also have everyday
consequences: general relativity is used by smartphones everywhere to locate
themselves in Earth’s gravitational field with the help of the Global Positioning
System.
We begin with Galilean relativity.
Assuming we care only about the overall position of the bike at any given time
we can boil this information down to a motion diagram, which represents the
position of the bike at any given time as a dot: