Table of Contents
Unit: Rotating Reference Frames
Reference Frames (40 minutes)
- Overview (Lecture: 5 minutes)
- Inertial Frames (SWBQ: 10 minutes)
- Galilean Transformations (Lecture: 10 minutes)
- Linear Acceleration (SGA or SWBQ: 15 minutes)
2-D Rotations (110 minutes)
- Merry-Go-Round (Kinesthetic Activity: 10 minutes)
- 2-d relative time derivatives (Lecture: 30 minutes)
- Coriolis and Centrifugal Accelerations (SGA or SWBQ: 10 minutes; can also be done as a kinesthetic activity)
- Turntable Hockey (Maple worksheet: 50 minutes)
- Linear Motion (Lecture: 10 minutes)
3-D Rotations (160 minutes)
- East is not East (SWBQ: 10 minutes)
- Rocket from the North Pole (SGA: 10 minutes)
- 3-d relative time derivatives (Lecture: 30 minutes)
- Earth Hockey I (SGA [web animations]: 40 minutes)
- Centrifugal and Coriolis forces (Lecture: 10 minutes)
- Earth hockey II (Maple worksheet: 60 minutes)
Motion Relative to Earth (40 minutes)
- Direction of Gravity (Lecture: 10 minutes)
- Applications (Lecture: 10 minutes)
- Foucault Pendulum (Lecture: 20 minutes)
Unit: Special Relativity
Basics of Special Relativity (45 minutes)
- Galilean Spacetime Diagrams (SWBQ: 20 minutes)
- Postulates of Special Relativity (Lecture: 15 minutes)
- Consequences of Special Relativity (Lecture: 10 minutes)
Lorentz Transformations (95 minutes)
- Time Dilation and Length Contraction (Lecture: 5 minutes)
- Paradoxes I (SGA: 45-80 minutes)
- Parable I (Lecture: 10 minutes)
Spacetime Geometry (150 minutes)
- Parable II (Lecture: 10 minutes)
- Spacetime (Lecture: 5 minutes)
- Trigonometry (SWBQ: 5 minutes)
- Circle Trig (Lecture: 10 minutes)
- Hyperbola Trig (Lecture: 15 minutes)
- Spacetime Intervals (Lecture: 5 minutes)
- Right Triangles (SWBQ: 10 minutes)
- Length Contraction (SWBQ: 30 minutes)
- Time Dilation (Lecture: 5–10 minutes)
- Angles and Speeds (Lecture: 20 minutes)
- Paradoxes II (SGA: 20 minutes)
- Resolving Paradoxes with Spacetime Diagrams (Lecture: 10 minutes)
Unit: Relativistic Mechanics
Relativistic Mechanics (50 minutes)
- Addition Formula from Lorentz Transformation (Lecture: 10 minutes)
- Proper Time (Lecture: 20 minutes)
- 4-velocity and 4-momentum (Lecture: 10 minutes)
- Rest Mass and Kinetic Energy (Lecture: 10 minutes)
Relativistic Dynamics (150 minutes)
- Energy, Mass, Momentum (SWBQ: 10 minutes)
- Massless Particles (Lecture: 5 minutes)
- Cosmic Rays (SGA: 45 minutes)
- Newtonian conservation laws (Lecture: 10 minutes)
- Relativistic conservation laws (Lecture: 20 minutes)
- Mass is not Conserved (SGA: 10 minutes)
- Straight Line is Longest (Lecture: 10 minutes)
- Discussion of collision activity (Lecture: 10 minutes)
- Energy-Momentum in Different Frames (SGA or SWBQ: 30 minutes)
Unit: Relativistic Electromagnetism
Relativistic E&M (85 minutes)
- Magnetism via Special Relativity (Lecture: 15 minutes)
- Lorentz Transformations for Electromagnetism (Lecture: 30 minutes)
- Lorentz Transformations for Electromagnetism (SGA: 45 minutes)
- Tensor Description of Electromagnetism (Lecture: 40 minutes)
Unit: Transition to General Relativity
Course Summary (10 minutes)
- Course Summary (Lecture: 10 minutes)
General Relativity (30 minutes)
- Tidal Effects (Lecture: 10 minutes)
- Geometry of General Relativity (Lecture: 10 minutes)
- Uniform Acceleration and Black Holes (Lecture: 10 minutes)
Miscellaneous Topics (10 minutes)
- Doppler effect (SGA: 10 minutes)
