IV.—Space, Time, and Relativity

Time and Relativity

Real Time Relativity: Exploratory learning of special relativity

“Real Time Relativity” is a computer program that lets users move at relativistic speeds through a simulated world populated with planets, clocks, and buildings. The counterintuitive and spectacular optical effects of relativity are prominent, while systematic exploration of the simulation allows the user to discover relativistic effects such as length contraction and the relativity of simultan...

Extending the Relativity of Time

More than 100 years ago, Einstein’s special relativity demonstrated that time is a relative notion. The observed rate of a moving clock differs from the rate of a stationary clock. In fact, the observed rate depends on the clock’s velocity. All admissible velocities are bounded by the speed of light. These predictions of special relativity have been verified experimentally in several different ...

Non-differentiable space-time and scale relativity∗

The theory of scale relativity consists of developing the consequences of the withdrawal of the hypothesis of space-time differentiability. Spacetime acquires a fractal geometry, namely, it becomes explicitly dependent on the observation scale. The space-time resolutions are redefined as characterizing the state of scale of the reference system, then we set the principle of scale relativity, ac...

Space, Time and Elementary Interactions in Relativity

When the theory of relativity was first proposed and had attained some success in its initial predictions, a rumor started to circulate that throughout the world only a very small number of men actually understood this theory. The general impression was thereby created that this was so profound an approach to the laws of nature that most ordinary scientists should not even attempt to understand...