Special Relativity

NB: This unit is no longer offered.

Special relativity is a physical theory which revolutionised our understanding of space and time by unifying the two into a single four-dimensional entity and banishing concepts of simultaneity and action at a distance. It is the basis of theories of both the small scales of elementary particles (quantum field theory), and of the large scales of strong gravitational fields ( general relativity) and the the Universe as a whole (cosmology).

Concise lecture notes (from when I taught the unit) in ps and pdf format.

Problem sheets with solutions (sorry: sheet one solution missing, no figures) One ps pdf, Two ps pdf, Three ps pdf, Four ps pdf, Five ps pdf

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Dr Carl Dettmann / carl.dettmann@bristol.ac.uk / Last edited June 7, 2004