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1. First postulate (principle of relativity) The laws of physics take the same form in all inertial frames of reference.. 2. Second postulate (invariance of c) . As measured in any inertial frame of reference, light is always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c that is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body.
Fig. 1: Fermat's principle in the case of refraction of light at a flat surface between (say) air and water. Given an object-point A in the air, and an observation point B in the water, the refraction point P is that which minimizes the time taken by the light to travel the path APB.
The measured shape of an object is a hypothetical snapshot of all of the object's points as they exist at a single moment in time. But the visual appearance of an object is affected by the varying lengths of time that light takes to travel from different points on the object to one's eye. Figure 5–5.
Newtonian mechanics added to the special principle several other concepts, including laws of motion, gravitation, and an assertion of an absolute time. When formulated in the context of these laws, the special principle of relativity states that the laws of mechanics are invariant under a Galilean transformation.
The dotted horizontal line represents the set of points regarded as simultaneous with the origin by a stationary observer. This diagram is drawn using the (x, t) coordinates of the stationary observer, and is scaled so that the speed of light is one, i.e., so that a ray of light would be represented by a line with a 45° angle from the x axis.
When substituted into Ev = c 2 p, this gives v = c: massless particles (such as photons) always travel at the speed of light. Notice that the rest mass of a composite system will generally be slightly different from the sum of the rest masses of its parts since, in its rest frame, their kinetic energy will increase its mass and their (negative ...
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The three-body problem is a special case of the n-body problem. Historically, the first specific three-body problem to receive extended study was the one involving the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun. [2] In an extended modern sense, a three-body problem is any problem in classical mechanics or quantum mechanics that models the motion of three ...