Physics and Mathematics
What are the concepts in Physics and Mathematics that students find difficult? In this blog I will post tutorial sheets that I hope will stimulate thinking and so broaden the knowledge and understanding of students allowing them to write thorough examination responses. Tutorial sheets, structured to assist student learning, will be posted on IB SL and HL Physics syllabus topics as well as the general HSC topics of relativity, electromagnetism, mechanics, thermodynamics, quantum physics and calculus. The overall purpose of these pages is to encourage and promote learning in Physics and Mathematics and so open new horizons in learning.
Permission is granted to use the material on this blog provided that recognition is given to its source,
the Sydney Physics and Mathematics Tutor
the Sydney Physics and Mathematics Tutor
It's About Time*
/Continuing with the study of relativity the next concept we come to is that of time. Einstein stated that time intervals were not the same in all reference frames but depended on the relative speed of the reference frames. Einstein called this effect time dilation (sometimes the term time dilatation is used). Students find time dilation a difficult concept for at least two reasons:
- Time is an abstract concept in itself. What is time? What does time dilation mean?
- Many time dilation questions in textbooks are poorly worded and this causes confusion.
What is time?
When a ball rolls along a track in the science laboratory its distance from the starting point changes as its travel time increases. To generalise this we can say that time is a number that increases as events happen in a reference frame. Time can be thought of as nature’s arrow. As time increases events happen in their natural order.
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