This page was created for Physics 49, and independent studies course at Santa Rosa Junior College in Santa Rosa, California. It is intended to be readable by the casual web surfer, as well as physics students looking for an overview of the special theory of relativity. This page is an attempt to make the concepts of special relativity more accessible to the everyday person, and maybe some of general relativity's concepts. This page is not for people who already have a firm grasp of the concepts of special and general relativity, and are familiar with the Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformations. For those of you who this applies to, you'll probably want to look up more advanced material, some of which may be found on the links page.
This page is the result of one semester's work (only a one unit course though) and is meant to give a reader a general understanding of how relativity came to be (the theory, that is), some thought experiments to demonstrate the principles of relativity, and how relativity theory has shaped modern physics.
The special relativity section of this site deals first with the concepts, then with the mathematics (Lorentz-Fitzgerald) of special relativity in inertial frames of reference. Many of the equations used are taken from the Concepts of Modern Physics text book, by Arthur Beiser, although some are expanded for clarity. To understand the math fully, knowledge of calculus is required, but a reader with knowledge of algebra should be able to get through most of the math without too much difficulty. Accelerated reference frames and the metric are not dealt with, so you should look elsewhere for treatment of those topics.
Since I have little knowledge of tensors and whatever other math is involved, I have not included any mathematical formulas for general relativity. (I had enough trouble trying to decipher the notation!) For this reason, only history and concepts of general relativity are given. For more advanced topics and mathematical formulas, take a look at the links page, or head on down to your local university library.
The information presented on this site has been taken from a number of sources, including books and the web sites listed on the links page. Here is a list of some of the books I used while researching:
| TITLE | AUTHOR OR EDITOR |
|---|---|
| Physics for Scientists and Engineers | Raymond A. Serway |
| Concepts of Modern Physics | Arthur Beiser |
| Einstein's Theory of Relativity | Max Born |
| Understanding Einstein's Theories of Relativity | Stan Gibilisco |
| Relativity Theory: Its Origins & Impact on Modern Thought | L. Pearce Williams |
| The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics | Timothy Ferris, ed. |
| Einstein - The Life and Times | Ronald W. Clark |
| Gravitation and Cosmology | Steven Weinberg |
| Space, Time and Gravitation | Sir Arthur Eddington |
| Relativity | Albert Einstein |
| A Brief History of Time | Stephen W. Hawking |
| Space and Time in Special Relativity | N. David Mermin |
| 17 Simple Lectures on General Relativity | H. A. Buchdahl |
| These are books on tensor math, if you're interested | |
| Matrix-Tensor Methods in Continuum Mechanics | S. F. Borg |
| Vectors, Tensors, and the Basic Equations of Fluid Mechanics | Rutherford Aris |