The Special Theory of Relativity: Vasant Natarajan and Diptiman Sen
The Special Theory of Relativity: Vasant Natarajan and Diptiman Sen
The Special Theory of Relativity: Vasant Natarajan and Diptiman Sen
1. Introduction
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Maxwell's equations brought optics into its unified do- 1 For further details, see the ar-
ticle 'Einstein's miraculous year'
main and, furthermore, predicted that light waves should
by Vasant Natarajan, V Bala-
propagate at a finite speed c (about 300,000 km/s) cal- krishnan and N Mukunda,
culable from these equations. With their Newtonian Resonance, VoUO, No.3,
ideas of absolute space and time firmly entrenched, most pp.35-56,2005.
physicists thought that this speed was correct only in
2 An inertial frame is a set of
one special frame. This special frame was postulated
c(>ordinates which is moving
to be in a state of absolute rest, and it was thought with a constant velocity, i.e., it
that electromagnetic waves were supported by an un- is not accelerating.
seen medium called the ether, which is at rest in this
frame.
With this picture in mind, it is clear that if the Earth
moves with respect to this special frame at a velodty
V, then the speed of light 'with respect to the Earth can
take any value from c -Ivl to c + lvi, depending on the
particular direction of v. This is indeed our intuitive
understanding of how two velocities add. For example,
if two objects have speeds VI and V2 with respect to some
fixed frame, then we expect that their relative speed will
be VI - V2 if they are moving in the same direction, and
VI + V2 if they are moving in opposite directions. We
have developed this 'intuition' based on our everyday
experiences, and we have a gut feeling that it is correct.
However, we will see below that the correct relativistic
law of 'addition of velocities' is somewhat different.
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Two events which that there is no need to hypothesize a medium called the
are simultaneous ether which is at rest in one preferred frame.
in one inertial
It now seems obvious that, if Maxwell's equations had to
frame are not
retain their validity in all inertial frames, then our New-
necessarily
tonian notions of space and time need to be modified.
simultaneous in However, while many of the best physicists of the time
other inertial were aware of this inconsistency between Maxwell and
frames. Newton, it took almost two decades after the Michelson-
Morley experiment and the genius of Einstein to come
up with the right modification to Newtonian mechanics.
3. Laws of Transformation of Space and Time
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Frame A Frame B
X' - x - vt
I
y Y
I
Z - z
and t' - t (1)
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x2 + y2 + z2 _ c 2t 2
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Under Lorentz transformation, we see that the time in- Length contraction
terval is not invariant. The curious reader might there- is a consequence
fore wonder what, if anything, do the two observers of the fact that
agree on? The answer lies in equation (2). The quan- simultaneity in time
tity (x2 + y2 + z2 - c2t 2) is obviously the same for both
is not an absolute
observers. This is called the spacetime interval, and
concept.
is a Lorentz invariant since it remains the same un-
der Lorentz transformations. We will see more about
Lorentz invariants later. One other point to note is that
the Galilean transformation can be thought of as a lim-
iting case of the Lorentz transformation, in the limit
c -t 00.
(4)
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t1t
(5)
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some distance to the right relative to A. Clearly, the The time interval
light wave has traversed a greater distance (along the viewed from a
triangle) in frame A. If the speed of light with respect moving frame is
to A is also to be c, the time interval has to be longer. always longer than
To see this quantitatively, let us denote the time inter- the corresponding
val between the above two events in frame A as ,2L/c, time interval in the
where, is the time-dilation factor that we are going rest frame.
to derive. The point 0 moves a distance (,2L/c)v be-
tween the two events. The time interval between the
two events is therefore given by twice the time needed
for light to travel the hypotenuse of a right-angled tri-
angle; by the Pythagoras theorem, the hypotenuse has a
length given by LJI + ,2v2/c 2. Hence the time interval
in frame A is (2L/c)VI + ,2v 2/c 2 which must be equal
to ,2L / c. This immediately leads to the relation
1
, = ----r-==== (6)
VI - v2 /c 2
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11 + vic (9)
1- vic
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in a frame which is moving in the opposite direction with The paper in which
velocity v. Note again that if v I c « 1, one recovers the Einstein derived the
lTIOre familiar result for Doppler shift v'I v = 1 ± vIc famous relation
(depending on the relative direction of the light waves E=mc2 is remarkably
and the frame of the observer). short!
Using arguments from the classical theory of electromag-
netism' Einstein also showed that the energy of the light
waves transforms in the same way as the frequency. This
is now obvious from the quantum theory of photons; the
energy of a photon is proportional to the frequency of
the corresponding light wave, the constant of propor-
tionality being given by Planck's consta~t h.
E 1 - vic E 1 + vic E
2 l+vlc
+ 2 1 - vI c = -;r=1=_=v=2=1c=2 (10)
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(12)
2
2 +
Px Py + P z 2 2
E = Mc++ ( 13)
2M
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The first term is the rest-mass energy while the second The muon appears
term is the form of the kinetic energy· that we are famil- to live seven times
iar with in non-relativistic classical mechanics. longer in the frame
Finally, we can use the Lorentz transformations in equa- of the Earth.
tion (3) to calculate the energy of a particle in different
inertial frames. We know that the energy and momen-
tum of a particle are given by M c2 and zero respectively
in its rest frame. We then find that in a frame which is
moving with a speed v with respect to its rest frame, its
energy is given by
E = --;:::=== (14)
}1- v2 /c 2
6. Experimental Verification of Einstein's Ideas
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will show that you need large amounts of energy to cre- to energy is in contrast to
nuclear fission and fusion dis-
ate even a light particle such as the electron, hence these
cussed above, where only
processes are observed only in high-energy experiments. about 0.1% ot the mass is con-
High-energy physicists therefore find it convenient to ex- verted to other forms ot energy.
press the masses of particles in terms of their equivalent
energy. For instance, the mass of an electron is about
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Box 1
A simple numerical example will illustrate how the time ordering of two events is not
an absolute notion. In an inertial frame A, let us suppose that event 1 occurs 10- 8
seconds before event 2, and that they are separated by a distance of 90 centimeters in
the i direction. Now consider a frame B which is moving with respect to frame A with a
velocity of 0.99 (~ in the x direction. Using the Lorentz transformations in equation (3),
we find that in this frame, event 1 occurs 10- 8 seconds after event 2. This is a very small
time difference by human standards; the smallness is due to the high speed of light which
takes only 3 x 10- 9 seconds to travel a distance of 90 centimeters.' Also, whenever this
happens, i.e. the time sequence of two events gets reversed, one of them could not have
been the cause of the other! The two events are outside each other's 'sphere of influence'.
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Frame A Frame B
7. Final Comments
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~.&.
"sometimes ask myselfhow it came about that I was the one to develop the theory
ofrelatiVity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about
problems ofspace and time. These are things which he has thought about as a
I I' child. But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result ofwhich I began
to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up. "
Einstein on relativity
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