Relativity and Cosmology

    

Teaching Special Relativity with a Handheld Model

Authors: Robert A. Close

Recent experimental and theoretical work has shown that classical wave processes can produce phenomena previously thought to be beyond the scope of classical physics. We describe how a simple hand-held model can be used to demonstrate the connection between classical waves and modern physics. The model consists of illustrations of two sets of wave crests. A stationary particle is modeled by wave crests propagating in circles. A moving particle is modeled by rotating the orientation of the wave crests so that they would propagate along helical paths rather than circular paths. An internal clock is assumed to tick each time a wave completes a full revolution around the cylinder common to both wave packets. These two model wave packets demonstrate relativistic frequency shift, time dilation, length contraction, and the de Broglie wavelength.

Comments: 6 Pages.

Download: PDF

Submission history

[v1] 2024-07-06 23:47:16

Unique-IP document downloads: 160 times

Vixra.org is a pre-print repository rather than a journal. Articles hosted may not yet have been verified by peer-review and should be treated as preliminary. In particular, anything that appears to include financial or legal advice or proposed medical treatments should be treated with due caution. Vixra.org will not be responsible for any consequences of actions that result from any form of use of any documents on this website.

Add your own feedback and questions here:
You are equally welcome to be positive or negative about any paper but please be polite. If you are being critical you must mention at least one specific error, otherwise your comment will be deleted as unhelpful.

comments powered by Disqus