The Concept of the Electric Field In the 19th century, Michael Faraday, one of the greatest experimenters in the field of electricity, had a peculiar way of working: he filled his laboratory with wires, charged spheres, and small containers with conductive liquids. A famous anecdote tells that, in his obsession...
Projectile Motion Summary: In this class, we will review all the kinematic aspects of projectile motion, a crucial topic in physics that extends our previous study on uniformly accelerated motion. We will address how, by removing the restriction on the direction of motion, we encounter parabolic trajectories typical of projectiles....
Refraction at Spherical Interfaces Summary: In this lesson, we will analyze Refraction at Spherical Interfaces, highlighting how light behaves when passing through spherical surfaces and how images are formed. The key equations for calculating the position and size of images are presented. Practical cases, such as lenses and the estimation...
Thin Lenses: Everything About Their Properties and Calculations Summary: This class introduces thin lenses, explaining their types (convergent and divergent), their optical properties, and the object-image relationship. Graphical methods are presented, and the lens maker's equation is derived to understand their functioning. The aim is to provide a basic understanding...
The Principle of Relativity Summary: The principle of relativity asserts that observations depend on the inertial frame, but in such a way that physical laws remain consistent. This class will present the concepts of inertial reference frame and the foundations that allow for the transformations between the coordinates observed by...
The Speed of Light and Electromagnetic Waves in a Vacuum Summary: In this class, we will review how, from the behavior of electromagnetic waves in a vacuum, it is derived from solving Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism in a vacuum. As a consequence, it is found that the speed of propagation...
Galileo's Transformations and Their Limitations Summary: The principle of relativity suggests that observations depend on the inertial frame, but in such a way that physical laws remain consistent. An initial and intuitive approach to this principle comes from Galileo's Transformations, which model how observations change between inertial reference frames in...
The Lorentz Transformations of Special Relativity Summary: The Lorentz transformations allow for the transformation of observed space and time coordinates between two inertial reference frames. In this article, we will review how the Lorentz transformations are derived as a linear coordinate transformation that emerges from considering the speed of light...
The Spacetime of Special Relativity Summary: In this class, we will review Lorentz Transformations in the context of special relativity, challenging the notion of absolute time and establishing the constancy of the speed of light in all inertial frames. It explores how these transformations connect the space and time coordinates...
Hyperbolic Rotations of Spacetime Summary: In this class, we will review how Lorentz transformations can be reinterpreted as spacetime rotation transformations. We will start by examining rotations in the four-dimensional Minkowski space, distinguishing between purely spatial rotations and those involving spacetime axes. LEARNING OBJECTIVES: By the end of this class,...
