LibGuides: Physics: Relativity

Books & eBooks

Gravity's Kiss by Harry Collins A fascinating account, written in real time, of the unfolding of a scientific discovery: the first detection of gravitational waves. Scientists have been trying to confirm the existence of gravitational waves for fifty years. Then, in September 2015, came a "very interesting event" (as the cautious subject line in a physicist's email read) that proved to be the first detection of gravitational waves. In Gravity's Kiss, Harry Collins--who has been watching the science of gravitational wave detection for forty-three of those fifty years and has written three previous books about it--offers a final, fascinating account, written in real time, of the unfolding of one of the most remarkable scientific discoveries ever made. Predicted by Einstein in his theory of general relativity, gravitational waves carry energy from the collision or explosion of stars. Dying binary stars, for example, rotate faster and faster around each other until they merge, emitting a burst of gravitational waves. It is only with the development of extraordinarily sensitive, highly sophisticated detectors that physicists can now confirm Einstein's prediction. This is the story that Collins tells. Collins, a sociologist of science who has been embedded in the gravitational wave community since 1972, traces the detection, the analysis, the confirmation, and the public presentation and the reception of the discovery--from the first email to the final published paper and the response of professionals and the public. Collins shows that science today is collaborative, far-flung (with the physical location of the participants hardly mattering), and sometimes secretive, but still one of the few institutions that has integrity built into it.
Call Number: QC179 .C65 2017
ISBN: 9780262036184
Publication Date: 2017

General Relativity

Relativity: Topic Page
Physical theory, introduced by Albert Einstein, that discards the concept of absolute motion and instead treats only relative motion between two systems or frames of reference. One consequence of the theory is that space and time are no longer viewed as separate, independent entities but rather are seen to form a four-dimensional continuum called space-time.
Lorentz contraction: Topic Page
In physics, contraction or foreshortening of a moving body in the direction of its motion, proposed by H. A. Lorentz on theoretical grounds and based on an earlier suggestion by G. F. Fitzgerald; it is sometimes called the Fitzgerald, or Lorentz-Fitzgerald, contraction.
Time
From Astronomy Encyclopedia
Property of the Universe determined by the observed order of events and in which effects follow causes. Newtonian or classical physics allowed the existence of an absolute time framework, whereby different observers could agree on the time of occurrence of an event by making an allowance for the travel times of light over different distances.
Geometry, Riemannian : Topic Page
A type of non-Euclidean geometry developed by Riemann in 1854. In Euclidean geometry, the distance between two neighbouring points on a plane is given by a relationship of the form
ds2 = dx2 + dy2

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Special Relativity

Measuring the Speed of Light
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather guide
The speed of light in a vacuum, c, is a fundamental constant of nature. It occurs in many scientific equations, such as Einstein's famous E = mc2. Numerous attempts have been made to determine c as accurately as possible.
Michelson-Morley experiment
From Astronomy Encyclopedia
The experiment attempted to detect the motion of the Earth through the luminiferous ether. Their apparatus split a beam from a common source into two parts, one travelling at right angles to the other. Both beams were reflected and recombined to produce an interference pattern.
Spacetime
From Collins Dictionary of Astronomy
The single physical entity into which the concepts of space and time can be unified such that an event may be specified mathematically by four coordinates, three giving the position in space and one the time. The path of a particle in spacetime is called its world line.
Special relativity: Topic Page
A system of mechanics applicable at high velocities (approaching the velocity of light) in the absence of gravitation; a generalization of Newtonian mechanics, due almost entirely to Albert Einstein (1905). Its fundamental postulates are that the velocity of light c is the same for all observers, no matter how they are moving; that the laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames; and that all such frames are equivalent.