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Relativistic Mechanics

This document discusses the key concepts of relativistic mechanics and conservation laws in physics. It explains that Einstein's special theory of relativity showed that classical assumptions about space, time, mass and velocity are false. The two postulates of special relativity are that all observers measure the same speed of light and that the laws of physics are the same in all inertial reference frames. As a result of these postulates, relativistic effects like length contraction, time dilation and relativity of simultaneity occur. Conservation laws in physics can be understood from the symmetry properties of nature and the laws of physics. Conservation of properties like mass-energy, momentum, angular momentum and electric charge follow from these symmetries.

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52 views4 pages

Relativistic Mechanics

This document discusses the key concepts of relativistic mechanics and conservation laws in physics. It explains that Einstein's special theory of relativity showed that classical assumptions about space, time, mass and velocity are false. The two postulates of special relativity are that all observers measure the same speed of light and that the laws of physics are the same in all inertial reference frames. As a result of these postulates, relativistic effects like length contraction, time dilation and relativity of simultaneity occur. Conservation laws in physics can be understood from the symmetry properties of nature and the laws of physics. Conservation of properties like mass-energy, momentum, angular momentum and electric charge follow from these symmetries.

Uploaded by

nikita bajpai
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Relativistic mechanics

In classical physics, space is conceived as having the absolute


character of an empty stage in which events in nature unfold as time
flows onward independently; events occurring simultaneously for
one observer are presumed to be simultaneous for any other; mass
is taken as impossible to create or destroy; and a particle given
sufficient energy acquires a velocity that can increase without limit.
The special theory of relativity, developed principally by Albert
Einstein in 1905 and now so adequately confirmed by experiment as
to have the status of physical law, shows that all these, as well as
other apparently obvious assumptions, are false.

Specific and unusual relativistic effects flow directly from Einstein’s


two basic postulates, which are formulated in terms of so-called
inertial reference frames. These are reference systems that move in
such a way that in them Isaac Newton’s first law, the law of inertia,
is valid. The set of inertial frames consists of all those that move
with constant velocity with respect to each other (accelerating
frames therefore being excluded). Einstein’s postulates are: (1) All
observers, whatever their state of motion relative to a light source,
measure the same speed for light; and (2) The laws of physics are
the same in all inertial frames.

The first postulate, the constancy of the speed of light, is an


experimental fact from which follow the distinctive relativistic
phenomena of space contraction (or Lorentz-FitzGerald
contraction), time dilation, and the relativity of simultaneity: as
measured by an observer assumed to be at rest, an object in motion
is contracted along the direction of its motion, and moving clocks
run slow; two spatially separated events that are simultaneous for a
stationary observer occur sequentially for a moving observer. As a
consequence, space intervals in three-dimensional space are related
to time intervals, thus forming so-called four-dimensional space-
time.
length contraction and time dilation
As an object approaches the speed of light, an observer sees the object become shorter and its
time interval become longer, relative to the length and time interval when the object is at rest.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
The second postulate is called the principle of relativity. It is equally
valid in classical mechanics (but not in classical electrodynamics
until Einstein reinterpreted it). This postulate implies, for example,
that table tennis played on a train moving with constant velocity is
just like table tennis played with the train at rest, the states of rest
and motion being physically indistinguishable. In relativity theory,
mechanical quantities such as momentum and energy have forms
that are different from their classical counterparts but give the same
values for speeds that are small compared to the speed of light, the
maximum permissible speed in nature (about 300,000 kilometres
per second, or 186,000 miles per second). According to relativity,
mass and energy are equivalent and interchangeable quantities, the
equivalence being expressed by Einstein’s famous mass-energy
equation E = mc2, where m is an object’s mass and c is the speed of
light.

The general theory of relativity is Einstein’s theory of gravitation,


which uses the principle of the equivalence of gravitation and locally
accelerating frames of reference. Einstein’s theory has special
mathematical beauty; it generalizes the “flat” space-time concept of
special relativity to one of curvature. It forms the background of all
modern cosmological theories. In contrast to some vulgarized
popular notions of it, which confuse it with moral and other forms
of relativism, Einstein’s theory does not argue that “all is relative.”
On the contrary, it is largely a theory based upon those physical
attributes that do not change, or, in the language of the theory, that
are invariant.
Conservation laws and symmetry
Since the early period of modern physics, there have
been conservation laws, which state that certain physical quantities,
such as the total electric charge of an isolated system of bodies, do
not change in the course of time. In the 20th century it has been
proved mathematically that such laws follow from
the symmetry properties of nature, as expressed in the laws of
physics. The conservation of mass-energy of an isolated system, for
example, follows from the assumption that the laws of physics may
depend upon time intervals but not upon the specific time at which
the laws are applied. The symmetries and the conservation laws that
follow from them are regarded by modern physicists as being even
more fundamental than the laws themselves, since they are able to
limit the possible forms of laws that may be proposed in the future.

Conservation laws are valid in classical, relativistic, and quantum


theory for mass-energy, momentum, angular momentum, and
electric charge. (In nonrelativistic physics, mass and energy are
separately conserved.) Momentum, a directed quantity equal to the
mass of a body multiplied by its velocity or to the total mass of two
or more bodies multiplied by the velocity of their centre of mass, is
conserved when, and only when, no external force acts.
Similarly angular momentum, which is related to spinning motions,
is conserved in a system upon which no net turning force,
called torque, acts. External forces and torques break the symmetry
conditions from which the respective conservation laws follow.

In quantum theory, and especially in the theory of elementary


particles, there are additional symmetries and conservation laws,
some exact and others only approximately valid, which play no
significant role in classical physics. Among these are the
conservation of so-called quantum numbers related to left-
right reflection symmetry of space (called parity) and to the reversal
symmetry of motion (called time reversal). These quantum numbers
are conserved in all processes other than the weak force.

Other symmetry properties not obviously related to space and time


(and referred to as internal symmetries) characterize the different
families of elementary particles and, by extension, their
composites. Quarks, for example, have a property called baryon
number, as do protons, neutrons, nuclei, and
unstable quark composites. All of these except the quarks are
known as baryons. A failure of baryon-number conservation would
exhibit itself, for instance, by a proton decaying into lighter non-
baryonic particles. Indeed, intensive search for such proton decay
has been conducted, but so far it has been fruitless. Similar
symmetries and conservation laws hold for an analogously
defined lepton number, and they also appear, as does the law of
baryon conservation, to hold absolutely.

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