Notes
Outline
Relativity, Time, and Black Holes
Ted Jacobson
Department of Physics
Relativity: 1905
“…the phenomena of electrodynamics as well as of mechanics possess
no properties corresponding to the idea of absolute rest.”
“…light is always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c which is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body.”
Relativity of simultaneity
Spacetime
Spacetime
Clock time depends on the
spacetime path between two events
Spacetime view of the twin “paradox”
Pythagorean theorem in space
Pythagorean theorem in spacetime
Zero time on a light ray!
Distance depends on the path
Longest time is along the straight path
in spacetime
Curved Spacetime:
the bending of light by gravity
New
York
Times
Nov. 9, 1919
Gravitational
lens
Straight line on a curved space
Time runs slower at lower places
in a gravitational well
Collapse
to a
black hole
Falling into a black hole
Fate of the
singularity?
An end of time?
Slide 22
Elliptical orbit of a star around the super-massive black hole in the center of the Milky Way galaxy
Notes