Special Relativity | Lecture 1
Why Physics Stack Exchange recommends it
Physics Stack Exchange answerers point people to it as a clear, rigorous introduction to special relativity, often as a prerequisite for Susskind's general relativity lectures or to explain the spacetime interval.
Recommended by 3 people across 3 different months, 2017 to 2022.
What it is
The first lecture of Leonard Susskind's Stanford Continuing Studies course on special relativity, recorded in April 2012. It introduces the topics of the series, including space-time, Lorentz transformations, and the groundwork for classical field theory and Maxwell's equations.
What people said
Recommends Turbotanten · 2017-01 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Why there is a minus in the definition of the Minkowski Spacetime Interval?”
Leonard Susskind professor at Stanford University has en excellent explanation of why the space-time invariant is defined the way it is. I've included a video link [this video] from where he begins to talk about the subject, if you'd like to watch it. He compares space-time to euclidean geometry where the normal Pythagorean theorem says that the square distance between two points is the sum of the square of the distance in your coordinate system. i.e $c^2= a^2+b^2$. This is a quantity that is invariant i.e. we could rotate our coordinate system and describe our new set of points in the new coordinate system with primed coordinates, then we would have the following invariant quantity between our n
Recommends Mihai B. · 2017-04 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “What are good books for special relativity?”
"The Meaning of Relativity" - A.Einstein. This will help you make the connection between SR and GR - tensor notations, etc - since deeper then special relativity is general relativity, but I suppose you wanted to say "more general appliance", "arbitrary directions", etc. Feynman lecture - volume 2 [LINK] - Feynman Lectures (there is also volume 1 [and 3] - as good as 2nd) Relativity [LINK] - MIT Course 8.033 (very good course, treating more advanced topics too and cosmology/BigBang stuff) Special Relativity [this video] - Video Lectures - L. Susskind (and if you want more you could always get to see his GR lectures; if that won't be enough you can get to see his String/M-theory lectures; if that
Recommends Mihai B. · 2017-04 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Structure of space”
[LINK] here they are ... 10 nice lectures about General Relativity from prof L. Susskind. If you don't manage to understand them take the prerequisite course - Special Relativty [this video]
Recommends Meet Chaudhari · 2022-11 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “How to rigorously put back dimensions in equations involving natural units?”
I was watching the first lecture of Special Relativity by Leonerd Susskind (link: [this video] ) whereby setting the speed of light to 1, i.e. $c = 1 \dfrac{[l]}{[s]}$ , where $[l] = 3 \cdot 10^8 [m]$ , we get one of the Lorentz transforms as: \begin{equation} x^{'} = \dfrac{x-vt}{\sqrt{1-v^2}} \tag1 \end{equation} Now, I am very confused about how he would just hand waive to justify transforming this equation into: $$ x^{'} = \dfrac{x-vt}{\sqrt{1-\dfrac{v^2}{c^2}}} \tag2 $$ Like I tried multiple things with dimension analysis to understand this. For example, if we set $u = \dfrac{v}{c}$ (dimensionless velocity) then, $v=uc$ , and hence we get: $$ x^{'} = \dfrac{x-u(ct)}{\sqrt{1-u^2}} \tag3 $$ So
Cites SK Dash · 2020-03 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Length contraction and time dilation relationship”
Consider the definition of length. We may define it as the difference of the spatial coordinates between two points with respect to a reference frame, when it's temporal coordinates are the same. Basically length is the distance between two points when they are at the same time coordinate. Thus the relationship between length with respect to two different reference frame may be obtained using the Lorentz Transformation for the spacial coordinates. Consider, the following scenario, two reference frames A and B. A is stationary, while B is moving with a constant velocity v with respect to A. We assign x and t to the reference frame A, x' and t' to reference frame B. Note I will be taking $c=1$
Cites SK Dash · 2020-03 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Time measured by a person vs Time measured by the same person as observed from another frame”
Consider the definition of length. We may define it as the difference of the spatial coordinates between two points with respect to a reference frame, when it's temporal coordinates are the same. Basically length is the distance between two points when they are at the same time coordinate. Thus the relationship between length with respect to two different reference frame may be obtained using the Lorentz Transformation for the spacial coordinates. Consider, the following scenario, two reference frames A and B. A is stationary, while B is moving with a constant velocity v with respect to A. We assign x and t to the reference frame A, x' and t' to reference frame B. Note I will be taking $c=1$
Cites Clemens Bartholdy · 2020-08 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “In relativity, why does spacetime diagram have position on $x$-axis and time on $y$-axis?”
In regular Newtonian physics, we use $ x(t) - t$ graph to under position of a particle but why is it that in special relativity that we switch up the axis notation? I was seeing the lecture [this video] by Leonard Susskind and, after one hour, I came under the impression that it is just a relabelling of an the axes because, I think it'd be possible to write every derivation said in the $t-x$ in the $x-t$ plane. Or is there something more deep about it which I am missing?