Relativity Lite

CONTENTS Author’s Note v Chapter 1: To c or Not to c 1 It’s About Time! 2 Did You Ever Wish You Had More Time? 3 How Does This Relate to Me? 5 Relativity Bites 8 There Are Cops, You Know! 12 A Short Tale 15 Chapter 2: Mixmaster Universe 19 The Low-Velocity Limit 19 Into the Mix 23 Is Nothing Sacred? 26 Chapter 3: A Trip to Alpha Centauri 29 Saucer Frame 34 A Smoothly Accelerated Saucer Frame 38 Chapter 4: Gravity Lite 43 Puttin’ on a Little Weight 43 The Principle of Equivalence 45 Black Holes 54 Gravitational Time Dilation 59 Gravitational Waves 64 Chapter 5: Cosmology 67 The Big Bang 67 The Hubble–Lemaître Law 71 But Is the Universe a Four- Dimensional Sphere? 74 The Bang 76 An Open and Shut Case 77 Cosmic Inflation 79 Why Would the Higgs Field Produce a Negative Pressure, and Why Would This Oppose Gravity? 80 Symmetry Breaking 81 Breaking the Higgs Symmetry 83 Is There Evidence of Inflation? 84 Which Universe Do We Live In? 89 Appendix: For the Instructor’s Use 93 Initial acceleration towards Alpha Centauri 100 Continuous acceleration to Cygnus X-1 101 Index 103