Special Relativity

winter term 2025/26.

Lecturer: Thore Posske
Lectures: Tuesdays, 4:15 p.m. - 5:45 p.m., Jungiusstr. 11, room A208
No lecture: Oct 21 (online material), Dec 24, Dec 31 (Christmas break)
Last lecture: Fri, July 12.

Script

Current version of this course's handwritten script
Script from previous lecture (Pfannkuche)

Content

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Student teaching units and lecture plan

The students prepare teaching units that evaluated as passed and not passed, see
List of projects/talks.
Each teaching unit lasts 20 (single) or 30 (team) minutes, and is discussed afterwards. Feel free to propose your own topics.


date topic who
Oct. 14 Only lecture
Oct. 21 No lecture
Oct. 28 Only lecture
Nov. 4 inertial frames of reference and events
Nov. 11 Einstein's postulates
Nov. 18 simultaneity
Nov. 25 time dilation
Dec. 2 length contraction
Dec. 9 Lorentz transformation
Dec. 16 relativistic collision
Jan. 6 E=mc2
Jan. 13 (1) Nuclear fission, (2) Nuclear fusion
Jan. 20 Special relativity and GPS
Jan. 27 Final discussions

Additional material

Cheat Sheet - Formelsammlung

Please send equations for the cheat sheet to Thore Posske. The final sheet can be downloaded here:
Cheat sheet - Formelsammlung

Recommended reading/references

Vorlesung Mathematische Methoden der Physik, Teil Matrizenrechnung
Mathematischer Vorkurs, Teil Matrizenrechnung
Einsteins Originalartikel: Zur Elektrondynamik Bewegter Körper (2005)
Einsteins Buch "Über die Spezielle und Allgemeine Relativitätstheorie" (allgemeinverständlich) (Neuauflage 2009)
Book Book recommendation for advanced reading SRT and GRT (Meinel)
ETH Zürich SRT Lernwerkstatt: Vollständige Lernwerkstatt (Oberstufe) zur Speziellen Relativitätstheorie.

External links


Einstein and simultanaeity clip
Das siehst du bei 99% Lichtgeschwindigkeit

Other ressources

Modulhandbuch Vorlesung La-Ba