Special Relativity

Chapter 37 sort of

1900: Lord Kelvin Gives a Talk

"Nineteenth-Century Clouds over

the Dynamical Theory of Heat and
Light"
Problems with

The Michelson-Morley experiment

Black body radiation

"Galilean" Relativity

Suppose you're playing pool on a train.

The train is traveling with speed v relative to the ground.

The ball is traveling with speed u relative to the train.

Obviously, the speed of the ball relative to the ground must

be

Now, question: do the laws of mechanics work in the moving

train?

Let's test three big ones: conservation of mass, momentum, and

energy.

"Galilean" Relativity

Suppose one billiard ball collides with another.

Assume elastic, but don't assume the balls stay intact.

Then:

Remember, u is the speed relative to the ground.

"Galilean" Relativity

Do these same laws hold for an observer on the train?

Use u = u' + v to write conservation of momentum as

Conservation of mass gets rid of the terms with v in them:

This is conservation of momentum relative to the train.

So, yes the laws of mechanics work just as well on the

moving train.

"Galilean" Relativity

This is, in fact, what we now call Galileo's principle of

relativity:
The laws of classical mechanics apply in all inertial
reference systems.

What about electrodynamics?

Recall that an inertial reference frame

is one in which Newtons laws hold
that is, it isnt an accelerating
reference frame.

What about electrodynamics?

Consider again an experiment with a train.

Put some charge in the train

Then, to an observer on the ground, there would be a magnetic field

generated.
But to someone on the train, there wouldn't be -- just an electric
field.

So it looks like electrodynamics doesnt obey Galileo's

principle.

What about electrodynamics?

But wait!

Before 1905, physicists thought electromagnetic fields

moved through a medium called the ether.

What reference frame do we use to measure the velocities of

charges? The ground?
But the ground is moving, too

So we must measure the velocities with respect to the ether.

Question: is the Earth moving with respect to the ether?

If so, how fast is it moving through?

We better find out!

What about electrodynamics?

How do we measure the "ether

wind" speed?
Michelson and Morley did an
experiment that measured the
difference in the speed of light in
different directions.

What about electrodynamics?

The Michelson-Morley experiment:

Suppose the apparatus is moving through
the ether.

Then the travel times of light going to each

mirror and back will differ.
And we should get an interference pattern
produced.

Michelson and Morley found that the

speed of light was exactly the same in all
directions.

It's hard to understand how perplexing this

was to physicists back then; all other waves
travel with respect to a medium.

What about electrodynamics?

Can we explain this lack of speed difference of light?

Sure -- various explanations were proposed.

But they resulted in new predictions of electrodynamics that were
never found.

Here's a possibility:

Lorentz suggested that the ether made objects shrink a little bit.
If the effect was just enough, and in just the right direction, it would
compensate for the ether wind.

What about electrodynamics?

A final example: motional emf versus Faraday's law.

Consider our electrodynamic train experiment, except now
we have a loop of wire.
First, a person on the ground watches the loop travel down
the track.

As it passes a magnet, the magnetic field exerts a force on the

charges in the wire.
We get a motional emf:

What about electrodynamics?

Now consider the point of view of someone on the train.

The loop is at rest, so no motional emf.

Instead, the changing magnetic field induces an electric field in the
loop, producing an emf

The important thing to realize is that, before 1905, physicists

thought that it was a coincidence that the two emfs were the
same.

Einstein's Postulates

Enter Einstein in 1905.

In relative isolation, he produced
four ground breaking papers in
one year:

On the photoelectric effect (particle

theory of light!)
On Brownian motion
On the electrodynamics of moving
bodies (special relativity)
And the one on E = mc2

Einstein's Postulates

What did Einstein do differently than everybody else?

The battle here was between Newtonian mechanics and

electrodynamics; he chose electrodynamics.
He took the Michelson-Morley experiment at face value -- the speed
of light was the same in all directions.
From two postulates (only!), he derived the special theory of
relativity: this described, essentially, the arena in which all physical
phenomena take place.

Einstein's Postulates

The Principle of Relativity: the laws of physics apply

in all inertial reference frames.

The universal speed of light: the speed of light in

vacuum is the same for all inertial observers,
regardless of the motion of the source, the
observer, or any assumed medium of propagation.

Actually, this follows from applying the first

principle to Maxwells laws of electrodynamics.

Consequences of the Two Postulates

The Relativity of Simultaneity

Consider our train once again

At the centre is a light bulb. Let's switch it on.

An observer on the train measures two events:
(a) Light reaches the front end of the train car
(b) Light reaches the back end of the train car

And finds they occur simultaneously.

Consequences of the Two Postulates

The Relativity of Simultaneity

What about an observer on the ground?

They'll find that event (b) -- light hitting the back end -- occurs first!
Two events which are simultaneous in one
inertial system are not, in general,
simultaneous in another.

This assumes the

speed of light is the
same for both
observers.

Consequences of the Two Postulates

Be careful!

We're not talking about the same thing as, say, thunder and
lightning.
We're assuming the observers are smart enough to take the time for
the signal to reach you into account.
Sometimes we'll need multiple assistants, each with synchronized
clocks, making measurements in various places.

The relativity of simultaneity is a genuine discrepancy

between measurements made by competent observers in
relative motion.

Consequences of the Two Postulates

Time Dilation

Now let's consider a light ray that leaves the bulb and strikes
the floor of the car directly below.

How long does it take light to make this trip?

For an observer on the train, it's easy:

Consequences of the Two Postulates

Time Dilation

For an observer on the ground, the same ray must travel

further because the train itself is moving.

This distance is

So the travel time of the light ray is

Consequences of the Two Postulates

Time Dilation

The two travel times are related by

Thus the time elapsed by the same two events -- (a) light leaves bulb
(b) light hits floor -- is different for the two observers.
The interval recorded on the train clock, t', is shorter:
Moving clocks run slow.

Consequences of the Two Postulates

Time Dilation

The square root term is called the Lorentz factor:

It'll show up again.

Consequences of the Two Postulates

Time Dilation

The effect of time dilation has been well tested.

Consider a muon.
It decays, on average, after 2 10-6 seconds have passed.
But -- that's for a muon at rest.
One that is moving close to the speed of light will actually last much
longer -- because its moving clock is running slower.

Consequences of the Two Postulates

Time Dilation

Consider a muon moving through the lab at 3/5 the speed of

light. How long does it last?

Well, the Lorentz factor of the muon is

So it'll live 5/4 times longer than it would at rest:

Consequences of the Two Postulates

The Twin Paradox

It goes like this

On her 21st birthday, an astronaut takes off in a rocket ship at a

speed of 12/13 c. After 5 years have elapsed on her watch, she turns
around and heads back at the same speed to rejoin her twin brother,
who stayed at home.
How old is each twin at their reunion?

Consequences of the Two Postulates

The Twin Paradox

The traveling twin, of course, has aged 10 years; she is 31

when she arrives home.
However, as viewed from earth, her moving clock has been
running slow by a factor

So the time elapsed on earth-bound clocks is

Consequences of the Two Postulates

The Twin Paradox

So her twin brother is 47 when she arrives home!

It's not just her watch that runs slow -- it's time itself.
So her biological processes are slower, too.

Okay, where's the paradox?

Well, let's look at it from her point of view, rather than her brother's
on earth.
She sees the earth fly off at 12/13 c, turn around after 5 years, and
return.
So the earth's clocks must be moving slower, not hers -- and so she
should be 16 years older, not younger.

Consequences of the Two Postulates

The Twin Paradox

What's the resolution of the paradox?

I won't tell you.

Think about Einstein's two postulates, and see if you can come up
with the answer.

Consequences of the Two Postulates

Lorentz Contraction

Back to the train! Now we've set up a lamp at one end of

the car, and a mirror at the other.
How long does the signal take to complete the round trip?

To an observer on the train, it's easy:

Consequences of the Two Postulates

Lorentz Contraction

For the observer on the ground, it's a bit trickier.

The round-trip time will be

Remember, the same two intervals are related by the time

dilation formula:

Consequences of the Two Postulates

Lorentz Contraction

Inserting our expressions for t' and t into the time dilation
formula gives us

Moving objects are shortened.

Consequences of the Two Postulates

The Barn and Ladder Paradox

There once was a farmer who had a ladder too long to store
in his barn.

Luckily, he knew some relativity.

So he had his son run with the ladder really fast, so that the ladder
Lorentz contracts to a size small enough to fit into the barn.

However, his lazy son argued that, from his point of view,
the barn will be moving and so will become smaller.

Then there's no way the ladder will fit.

Consequences of the Two Postulates

The Barn and Ladder Paradox

So, who right? Will the ladder fit or not?

They're both right! There are really two events we're talking
about here:
(a)
(b)

Back end of ladder makes it in the door

Front end of ladder hits the far wall.

The farmer says (a) occurs before (b); the son says (b) occurs
before (a) -- and they're both right.

Remember, the order of events depends on the observer.

The Lorentz Transformations

To be careful about measuring things that move relative to

each other, we'll define an event as something that takes
place at a particular place (x, y, z) and time t.
Now suppose we describe an event in one inertial system
(say, the ground) as (x, y, z, t).

What are the coordinates of the event in another coordinate system

that is moving relative to the ground?

The Lorentz Transformations

Before Einstein, any physicist would have said that the

coordinates are related by

Einstein instead said that we must use the Lorentz

transformations:

A taste of more advanced relativity

Four-Vectors

Einstein's theory puts time on equal footing with space; in

fact, things look simpler when expressed in terms of fourvectors:

Then the Lorentz transformations read ( = v/c)

A taste of more advanced relativity

Momentum

Momentum is no longer simply mu; the relativistically

correct equation is

A taste of more advanced relativity

Energy

The rest energy of an object is given by Einstein's famous

equation,

So the total energy will be the rest mass plus the kinetic energy:

It turns out you can write this simply as

A taste of more advanced relativity

Energy

Einsteins equation implies an equivalence between mass

and energy.
Consider the following inelastic collision:

Before:

After:

Looks like energy isnt conserved!

A taste of more advanced relativity

Energy

In fact, energy is conserved! The final product doesnt have

a mass of 2m equating energies gives

Before:

After:

Mass isnt conserved!

A taste of more advanced relativity

Energy

Really?
Yes:

Or, fission and fusion.

A Final Note

Careful! There is a lot of subtlety to special relativity, and a

lot of stuff I glossed over.

Also, special relativity is special because is only deals with a

special case:

It took Einstein ten years to publish the general theory,

which holds for noninertial systems as well.

Inertial reference frames.

It ends up relating the matter of the system to its curvature.

And so is a theory of gravity.

But the mathematical language is formidable.