from Cavendish Press Ann Arbor
Contents III. Chapters 15-17 Becoming a practitioner in four dimensions
These are chapters for the scientifically inclined. They are still geared to those whose mathematics training consists of algebra and geometry at the high school level. But the material draws more consistently on step-by-step algebraic and geometric reasoning than the earlier chapters.
Chapters 16 and 17 are intended to bring the fundamental discussion of the rest of the book to the threshhold of the practitioner's repertoire.
In these chapters the discussion moves to solving the kinds of problems that physicists nowadays routinely solve. These are in two categories:
- Problems having to do with the buzzing of electromagnetic radiation (light), and high energy particles, around the cosmos. Practical matters such as interpreting the time delay of particulate matter behind light arriving from a cosmic event, such as a Super Nova. The method of Minkowski diagrams is derived, and its practical power is demonstrated with many examples.
- The use of conservation laws to solve problems in high energy particle collisions. Total energy, including rest mass, and momentum, are conserved during any possible collision. The equations are derived, and their use is outlined. An example involving the creation of a proton anti-proton pair at the expense of kinetic energy is solved.
- Chap 15 Transformations
- Chap 16 Minkowski Diagrams and the Lorentz Transformation. Graphical and Algebraic Methods.
- Chap 17 Conservation Laws in Space-Time
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