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Einstein in 1955 on the death of his lifelong friend Michele Besso:
"The foundation of our friendship was laid in our student years in Zurich, where we met regularly at musical evenings … later the patent office brought us together. The conversation during our mutual way home were of unforgettable charm … . And now he has preceded me briefly in bidding farewell to this strange world. This signifies nothing. For us believing physicists the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, even if a stubborn one."
We finished our discussion of the the Special Theory of Relativity.
This assignment is due in tutorial this week. All real attempts to complete the assignment will receive 1 mark.
In class and in the Supplementary Notes we resolved the twin "paradox" by drawing spacetime diagrams in inertial frames and noting that the worldline for Sue is longer than the worldline for Lou. From this we concluded that the longer worldline is the twin who is younger when they re-unite. We analyzed the problem in two inertial frames of reference:
Homework Assignment #1 is:
Draw a spacetime diagram and Sue and Lou's worldlines in an inertial frame of reference for which Sue is stationary on her trip back to Earth from Alpha Centauri. As in the two cases analysed in class, have her blast off to Alpha Centauri at the point in spacetime called the "present."
Be sure to label the axes of the spacetime diagram, and be sure to measure time in "non-sacred" units.
Which twin's worldline is longer?
The questions, answers and marking scheme for last year's test is available as a pdf document here. The document is also available from the About the Test section of the course home page.
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Note: the examinable material in this year's version of JPU200Y is not completely the same as last year's version. We discussed what material is examinable in Class 5. | |
