Senior High School

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Physical Science
Quarter 2 - Module 4 (Week 6-7)
Einstein’s Special and General Relativity

Department of Education ● Republic of the Philippines

Physical Science- Grade 12
Alternative Delivery Mode
Quarter 2 - Module 8: Einstein’s Special and General Relativity
First Edition, 2020

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 Table of Contents

What This Module is About ................................................................................................... i

What I Need to Know ............................................................................................................ ii
How to Learn from this Module ........................................................................................... ii
Icons of this Module ............................................................................................................. iii
What I Know ........................................................................................................................ iii

Lesson 1:
Special Relativity ......................................................................................................................... 1
What I Need to Know .......................................................................................... 1
What’s New: Observing Light ............................................................................ 2
What Is It ............................................................................................................... 3
What’s More: Special Relativity experiment ................................................... 4
What I Have Learned: Test your Analysis ........................................................ 5
What I Can Do: Reflection Paper ....................................................................... 6

Lesson 2:
Consequences of Postulate of Special Relativity .................................. 7
What’s In ....................................................................................................... 7
What I Need to Know.................................................................................... 7
What’s New: Guessing Time ..................................................................... ..9
What Is It: .................................................................................................... .10
What’s More: Perform Me Correctly .......................................................... .14
What I Have Learned: Explain Briefly……………………………………..15
What I Can Do: Reaction Paper … ............................................................ ..16

Lesson 3:
Consequences of Postulate of General Relativity................................. 17
What’s In ....................................................................................................... 17
What I Need to Know.................................................................................... 17
What’s New: Find A Partner ...................................................................... ..18
What Is It: .................................................................................................... 18
What’s More: I am Bent .............................................................................. . 21
What I Have Learned: Expound Me ……………………………………… 22
What I Can Do: Let’s React ………………………………………………22
Lesson 4:
Speeds and Distances of Far-off Objects ....................................................... 23
What I Need to Know.................................................................................... 23
What’s New: Knowing Parallax…………. ................................................. ..24
What Is It:…… ............................................................................................ ..24
What’s More: Show It To Me! ................................................................... ..30
What I Have Learned: Test Your Analysis ……………………………..…31
What I Can Do: How far? How Powerful? …………..……………………32

Lesson 5:
The Expanding Universe .................................................................................................... 35
What’s In ....................................................................................................... 35
What I Need to Know.................................................................................... 35
What’s New: Think Pair-Share ................................................................... ..36
What Is It: ................................................................................................... ..36
What’s More:The Expanding Universe- Galaxies … ...................................... ..41
What I Have Learned: Test Your Analysis-
Calculating the age of the Universe ……………....42
What I Can Do: Sketch Me Up!……………………………………………42

Summary………………………………………..…………………………………………43
Assessment: (Post-Test)…………………………………………………………………...44
Key to Answers……………………………………………………………………………46
References…………………………………………………………………………………48
 Lesson

1 SPECIAL RELATIVITY

What I Need to Know

Relativity is not new. Galileo explained that motion is a relative way back around the year
1600. Wherever you happen to be, it seems like you are at a fixed point, and that everything
moves with respect to you. Everyone else feels the same way. With respect to a fixed point
motion is always measured. This is what we called establishing a frame of reference. In the
discussion of relativity light is always involved for theories related to electromagnetism are
inconsistent with Galileo’s and Newton’s explanation of relativity. The true nature of light
was a hot topic of discussion and controversy in the late nineteenth century and it is now
explain how special relativity resolved the conflict between Newtonian mechanics and
Maxwell's electromagnetic theory.

Newtonian Mechanics is also called as classical mechanics containing concepts that do not
entirely agree with other known theories in Physics like electromagnetic theory of Maxwell
but when Einstein presented his theory of special relativity, the conflict between the two great
physicists was resolved.

Maxwell’s theory is in fact contradicts with Newtonian Mechanics, and in trying to find the
resolution to this conflict so, Einstein, lead to his theory of special relativity. Maxwell’s
equation withstood the conflict, but it was Newtonian mechanics that were corrected by
relativistic mechanics.

But how the theory of special relativity resolved the conflict between the two famous
physicists? What is Einstein’s theory of special relativity?
 What’s New

Activity 8.1.1. Observing Light

What can you tell about the picture below? Which theory regarding light is correct the
Newtonian’s Theory or Maxwell Theory? Why?

https://doi.org/10.1119/1.4895355

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 What Is It

Newtonian mechanics discusses the everyday motion of the objects of normal size around us
including the force that causes these motions. The concepts under Newtonian mechanics are
mainly based on ideas of Newton about motion which correctly describes the state of motion
of an object whether at rest or moving in a straight path and the forces that maintain and can
cause changes in the body’s states of motion.

Furthermore, Newtonian mechanics is based on the assumption of absolute space and time.
This means that the distance between two points, and the time that passes between two events
don’t depend on the coordinate system you choose. Therefore, a coordinate transformation
must leave them unchanged.

Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory consists of four formulas from the different works of
Faraday and other physicists that unite all the concepts of electricity and magnetism that had
the findings that electric and magnetic fields spread as waves. In 1886, Hertz proved that
these waves really exist and the propagation speed of these waves can be calculated using the
formula:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/physical-science/91-theory-of-special-
relativity/3390893954260139/
Moreover, Maxwell observed that the value of the above expression is equivalent to the speed
of light c (3.0 x 108 m/s) which implies that speed of light c must also be constant in which
the conflict between Newtonian mechanics and Maxwell’s theory starts.

If we consider a moving object with the of speed 100 m/s and switched on the flashlight,
according to Newtonian mechanics the speed of the light from the flashlight would be 100
m/s + c and dispute what Maxwell’s theory stating that the speed of light is a constant value.
Which is true between these two concepts?

The theory of special relativity proposed by Einstein in 1905, is a theory in physics that
concern the relationship between space and time objects that are moving at a consistent speed
in a straight line. Simply placing an object approaching the speed of light, its mass becomes
infinite, and it is unable to go any faster than light travels. It is the generally accepted and
experimentally confirmed.

The two main postulates of special relativity are:

1. The laws of physics are the same in all reference frames that are moving at a
constant velocity (not accelerating).
2. The speed of light is the same in all of these reference frames, even if the source
of the light is moving.

The second postulate clearly tells that Maxwell’s theory is correct but does imply that
Newtonian mechanics is wrong. But not totally, the postulates of Einstein tell us that
Newtonian mechanics has limitations in terms of its application. Considering moving objects
with speed very small compared to the speed of light, Newtonian mechanics applies like the
speeds of a flying ball and running car but considering a speed that is near to the speed of
light, a new concept must be included to supply the limit of Newtonian mechanics and that is
the Lorentz transformation the counterpart of the Galilean transformation of the Newtonian
mechanics.

What I Have Learned

Activity 8.1.3. Test your Analysis

Make a Table showing the conflict between Newtonian Mechanics and Maxwell Theory on
the speed of light.

Newtonian Mechanics Maxwell Theory

 Lesson CONSEQUENCES OF THE
POSTULATE OF SPECIAL
2 RELATIVITY

What’s In

In the year 1900, most of physics seemed to be comprised in two great theories of Newtonian
mechanics and theory of electromagnetism by Maxwell. Unfortunately, there were
inconsistencies between the two theories that seemed irreconcilable. The genius Einstein sees
that the conflicts were alarmed not merely with mechanics and electromagnetism, but with
most elementary ideas of space and time as many physicists struggled with the problem,
Einstein resolved these difficulties and profoundly altered our conception of the physical
universe using special theory of relativity.

What I Need to Know

POSTULATES OF SPECIAL RELATIVITY

The first Einstein’s Postulate states, "At any frame of reference, all laws of physics
are the similar.”
These physical laws help us to understand how and why our environment reacts the way it
does allowing us to predict events and their outcomes. As a result of this postulate, we can
formulate such laws and be sure that they are independent of our current state of motion.
Consider a yardstick and a box. If you measure the length on the box, you can get the same
result whether you are standing on the ground or riding a bus. Measure the time it takes a
pendulum to make 10 full swings from a height of 12 inches above its resting place. You will
again get the same results regardless whether you are standing on the ground or riding a bus,
assuming that the bus is not accelerating, but travels along at a constant velocity on a plane
road. If we take the same examples, but this time measure the box and time the pendulum
swings as they ride past us on the bus, this time we arrive at different results than our
previous results. The difference in the results of our experiments happens because it follows
the first postulate of special relativity.
 The second Einstein’s Postulate states: "For all reference frames, the speed of light
(c) is the same no matter what their relative speed is."

In other words, the speed of light is ultimate constant of nature. Suppose I am in a car going
50 km/h, and I throw a baseball 10 km/h in the same direction the car is going. If you were
standing on the side of the road with a radar gun, you’d measure the baseball going 50 + 10 =
60 km/h. That’s how we classically deal with relative motion. Now suppose I am in the car
shining a flashlight. If you could measure the speed of the light coming out of it from the side
of the road, you’d get the same speed no matter fast the car was going, or what direction I
shined the light. That is what makes light special!

As you go along this lesson, you can find answers to the following questions:
 Can you catch up with light?
 What would happen if I rode a light beam?
 If you were moving at the speed of light and viewed in a mirror, can you see
your reflection?
 If you are travelling on the outer space, does the time the same in the Earth?
The questions above will give you an idea on the topics you may find more interested to
know and eager to learn more.

What Is It

The consequences of the postulate of special relativity are relativity of simultaneity,

time dilation, length contraction, mass-energy equivalence, and cosmic speed limit.

LENGTH CONTRACTION
A moving object would be shorter in length.as observe by the observer at rest that is relative
to the moving object.
Here are two identical cars, car A and car D.

http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/physics/high_schools/2005/Special_relativity/LENGTHCON
TRACTION.html
Car A is stopped at a stop sign and car B is moving past at an appreciable fraction of the
speed of light. Measure the length of Car B while passing at Car A and measure the length of
car A. Does the length of Car A is the same as Car B?

It turns out that the length you measure will be smaller than the value you obtained for car A.
This is the principle of length contraction. Since car B has a relative velocity with respect to
you and car A does not, you obtain two different values for their lengths.

Note that car B will only be shorter in the direction it is traveling its width and height will not
be affected. In our lives, we never detect length contraction because we move at speeds that
are very small with respect to the speed of light.

TIME DILATION

An observer who is in relative motion with respect to that clock determined the “slowing
down” of a clock.

Consider a light clock.

http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/physics/high_schools/2005/Special_relativity/TIMEDILATI
ON.html

This clock measures the speed of light by sending out a beam of light to the top plate. Call
this event A. This beam is then reflected back to the clock. Event B is when the light reaches
the clock again.

For the stationary clock on the left, the measured time interval between events A and B is ten
seconds. The clock on the right is set in motion with a given speed. To an observer traveling
on the clock, the time interval between events A and B is still ten seconds. However, to an
observer watching the clock move, it now appears that the light beam travels further than
before.

Since velocity is distance/time and the speed of this beam must be a constant, the measured
time interval between events A and B must now be greater than ten seconds.
 SIMULTANEITY

Whether two spatially separated events not absolute occur at the same time but depends on
the observer's reference frame.

Imagine that you and your friend Timmy are at opposite ends of your class when you notice
your professor turns on his light at the podium. You call Timmy and ask him if he saw the
professor turn on the light. Timmy answers that he did.

.http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/physics/high_schools/2005/Special_relativity/SIMULTANE
ITY.html

The next day your professor decides demonstrate simultaneity by asking the class to go on
the special relativity bus, while he stands outside it. Once again you and Timmy are on the
opposite sides of the bus, where he is sitting in the front and you are sitting in the back.

The bus starts moving at 0.9c (where c is the speed of light, approximately 300 000 000 m/s)
the professor, who is standing in the middle turns on his flashlight. Write down the time at
which you see the light from the outside. Timmy, sitting on the front of the bus does the same
thing since both two have synchronized watches.

When the bus comes to a stop you and Timmy compare the times at which you saw the light.
Unfortunately they are different. Now that the bus was moving, its back was going into the
path of the light waves faster than the light waves were spreading out from the middle of the
bus. This enabled you to see the event sooner, whereas Timmy had to wait for the emitted
light waves to reach him.
MASS INCREASE

The rest energy and total energy of the body are equivalent to the rest mass (an invariant
quantity which is the same for all observers in all reference frames) and relativistic mass
(dependent on the velocity of the observer), respectively.

http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/physics/high_schools/2005/Special_relativity/MASSINCRE
ASE.html

Einstein cleverly suggested that when someone observes you in motion, if they measure your
mass, it would appear to increase as your speed increases.

So why does your mass seems to increase to an observer watching you if you are speeding
up? First, consider that Einstein determined that energy (E) and mass (m) are related. He
stated that the energy an object contains is simply its mass multiplied by the speed of light
squared. This is the famous equation we all know, E = mc2.

Through this equation, Einstein tells us that the energy of a body always equals mc2. We
stated earlier that when you are at rest, you have a given rest mass, and let’s call it m0. So
your energy in this case to someone observing you at rest would be m0c2. Your rest energy is
a sort of basic or minimum amount of energy you always have whether you are at rest or not
 What’s More

Activity 8.2.2. Perform Me Correctly

Place an expanded balloon of air on a weighing scale outside your house early morning in the
morning. Assuming that the balloon stays on the scales and record changes in its weight
everyday. Does the mass of the balloon change from day 1 to day 5? Discuss the worries in
carrying out this experiment.

Day Weight
 What I Have Learned

Activity 8.2.3. Explain briefly

Answer the questions briefly and concisely.

1. When you riding in a commercial airplane, it appears that the plane is at rest and the Earth
is moving underneath you. Is this point of view valid? Discuss briefly.
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2. How does the elapsed time for a process seem to be longer, an observer moving with the
process or observer moving relative to the process? Which observer measures proper
time? Explain your answer.
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3. How far could you travel into the future without aging significantly? Could this method
also applied to travel into the past?
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4. To whom does an object seem greater in length, observer moving relative to the object or
an observer moving with the object? Which observer measures the object’s proper length?
Why?
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5. Assuming no molecules escape or are added, what happens to the mass of water in a pot
when it cools? Is this observable in practice? Explain.
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 Lesson CONSEQUENCES OF THE
POSTULATES OF GENERAL
3 RELATIVITY

What’s In

After the publication of the theory of special relativity in 1905, the following years, Einstein
worked on the details that acceleration produced the same effect as gravitation. The General
Theory of Relativity is a generalization of the Special Theory of Relativity. It is definitely the
most remarkable achievements of science to date. It was developed by Einstein with little or
no laboratory experiment but instead he was driven by mental analysis and philosophical
questions.

What I Need to Know

The General Theory of Relativity rests on the Principle of Equivalence which states
that inertial and gravitational masses are identical. This postulate will fail if one can find a
material for which the inertial and gravitational masses have different values. One might
think that this represents a defect of the theory, its Achilles heel – its weakness in spite of
overall strength. In one sense this is true since a single experiment has the potential of
demolishing the whole of the theory which may people have tried, but all experiments have
validated the principle of equivalence.Thus, the General Theory of Relativity is a gem.
The second fundamental principle of General Relativity is that the presence of curve
matter in space. In this opinion, gravity is not classified as force, as being described by
Newton, but a curvature in the fabric of space, and objects respond to gravity by following
the curvature of space in the vicinity of a massive object as illustrated in Figure 8.3.1.

Figure 8.3.1 The Curvature of Space caused by a Massive Object.

https://casswww.ucsd.edu/archive/public/tutorial/GR.html
 SHIFTS IN THE ORBIT OF MERCURY

In the study of the Solar System a long-standing problem was that the orbit of Mercury did
not behave as Newton’s equations says. Let me describe the way Mercury’s orbit looks to
understand what the problem is.

As Mercury orbits the Sun, it follows approximately an elliptical path. It was found that the
point of closest approach of Mercury to the sun changes as it slowly moves around the sun as
shown in Figure 8.3.2. This rotation of the orbit is a precession. The precession of the orbit
does not happen to Mercury only but to all the planetary orbits., The effect of being produced
by the pull of the planets on one another was predicted in Newton’s theory.

The precession of Mercury’s orbit is measured to be 5600 seconds of arc per century as seen
from Earth. Newton’s equations, considering all the effects from the other planets (as well as
a very slight deformation of the sun due to its rotation) and the fact that the inertial frame of
reference is not the Earth, the precession of 5557 seconds of arc per century where the
discrepancy is 43 seconds of arc per century is predicted. This discrepancy cannot be
accounted for using Newton’s formalism. Many ad-hoc fixes were devised (such as assuming
there was a certain amount of dust between the Sun and Mercury) but none were consistent
with other observations. Similarly, Einstein was able to predict that the orbit of Mercury
should precess by an extra 43 seconds of arc per century should the General Theory of
Relativity be correct.

Figure 8.3.2. Artist’s version of the precession of Mercury’s orbit. Most of the effect is due to the pull
from the other planets but there is a measurable effect due to the corrections to Newton’s theory
predicted by the General Theory of Relativity.
http://iontrap.umd.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/WudkaGR-7.pdf
 GRAVITATIONAL BENDING OF LIGHT

A clear consequence of the equivalence principle is that bending of light by gravity. For two
times Einstein calculated the amount that light would be deflected passing by the sun, which
is the largest "nearby" mass. It was in his second calculation that Einstein was able to predict
that light from a distant star would be deflected by 1.75 arcseconds or less than 1/2000 th of a
degree.

The Solar Eclipse of 1919 was the first opportunity for Einstein to
test his calculations. British Astrophysicist Sir Arthur Eddington
observed the shift in position of the Hyades cluster stars behind the
occulted sun by mounting a pair of expeditions to West Africa and
Brazil to. Though not perfectly precise, Eddington's measurements
clearly showed a deflection and favored the larger value. This result
made Einstein world-famous.

An exhilarating and only very recently verified prediction of the

bending of light by gravity is the existence of gravitational lenses,
bending of light due to the change of the speed of light as it passes through a refractive
medium. Massive objects can act as lenses because gravity can bend light. This is done by
focusing and amplifying images of distant objects. Gravitational lenses differ from "normal"
lenses. It produce multiple images such as the Einstein Cross, a case of a distant quasar
imaged by a galaxy between us and the quasar, discovered by J. Huchra & colleagues as
shown in Figure 8.3.3.

Figure 8.3.3 The Einstein Cross: four images of a quasar GR2237+0305 (a very distant – 8
billion light-years– very bright object) appear around the central glow. The splitting of the
central image is due to the gravitational lensing effect produced by a nearby galaxy
https://casswww.ucsd.edu/archive/public/tutorial/images/EinsteinCross.jpg

BLACK HOLES

Light is pulled by gravity just like rocks. Rocks can be put in orbits, but how about light?
Indeed, light can be put in orbits but we need a very heavy object whose radius is very small,
for example, we need something as heavy as the sun but squashed to a radius of less than
about 3km.
Going farther and imagine an object so massive and compact that if we turn on a laser beam
on its surface gravity’s pull will bend it back towards the surface. This means that since no
light can leave this object it will appear perfectly black, this is a black hole. An object which
comes sufficiently close to a black hole will also disappear into it since nothing moves faster
than light if an object traps light it will also trap everything else.
The effect of a black holes, like all gravitational effects, decreases with distance. This means
that there will be a boundary surrounding the black hole that anything crossing it will not be
able to leave the region near the black hole; this boundary is called the black-hole horizon.

What’s More

Activity 8.3.2. I am Bent

Refer to the two pictures below, how does the beam of light behaves in both situations?

Situations Behavior of light

Upward-accelerating
elevator

Elevator maybe
accelerating upward or
maybe acted by gravity

What postulate supports this behavior of light?

https://openstax.org/books/college-physics/pages/34-4-dark-matter-and-closure