Welcome to the homepage for Physics 160: Light & Relativity. You can read the syllabus by clicking here.

This is a course designed to introduce potential physics majors to the discipline. The first part of the course deals with the basics of ray and wave optics. Later, the discussion of interference phenomena naturally leads to the ideas proposed by Albert Einstein to deal with the constancy of the speed of light. Time dilation, length contraction, the meaning of simultaneity and the nature of spacetime will be discussed in detail. No mathematics beyond basic high school algebra will be required, but the conceptual ideas are somewhat difficult and will require some serious study time.

Here are some links to other web pages that may help you to learn about some of the ideas discussed in this course:

Aristotle's views of the world. This page has a very nice description of Aristotle's views of space and time and his (incorrect) theories of how the world works.

Galileo's views of the world.. This page describes Galileo's approach to describing space and time. It contains some MPEGs for which you must have an MPEG viewer. But this page is useful even if you cannot view the MPEGs.

Newton's Laws and his view of space and time. This page follows with a description of Newton's Laws of Motion and his views of spacetime. More MPEGs

The Story of Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott. This is a story about creatures who inhabit a two dimensional world amd the problems they encounter when they try to imagine a third dimension.. This book may help you to understand the problems we three dimensional creatures have in dealing with the 4 dimensional world of spacetime.

Spacetime and Relativity. A nice web page with lots of animation and descriptions of special and general relativity, some is simple and some a little more complicated.

Special Relativity You will find lots of stuff about Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and Black Holes at this location.

Galileo. Lots of links to historical information about the life and times of Galileo Galilei.

Young's Double Slit Experiment. Detailed information about the famous 18th century experiment that showed that light behaved like a wave can be found here, including several diagrams and sketches to help to explain the experiment.

Michelson-Morley Experiment. Lots of information about the experiment to detect the aether. The site also includes information about interferometers.

Special Relativity You will find lots of stuff about Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and Black Holes at this location.

Einstein. A page of links to everything you ever wanted to know about Albert Einstein.

Einstein on PBS This is the PBS web site that accompanies the 2-hour NOVA special on the life and works of Einstein which aired on October 1, 1996. This site contains a lot of very readable information about Einstein and the theories of Special and General Relativity.

Black Holes Even more stuff about black holes at this location.

Momentum This location discusses conservation of momentum using the example of automobile airbags.
Questions? Please feel free to send e-mail to Dr. Hickey.