AST 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Einstein Ring, Correlation Does Not Imply Causation, Special Relativity

• School: Stony Brook University
• Department: Astronomy
• Course: AST 101
• Professor: Jin Koda

Document Summary

Light from the same object, but from different parts of the sky. Typically, bright (and massive) objects are found at the center. Matter distorts spacetime in a manner analogous to how heavy weights distort a rubber sheet. Our thought experiments about special relativity (chapter s2) involved spaceships moving at constant velocity. The universe may have no boundaries and no center but may still have finite volume. Rapid changes in the motion of large masses can cause gravitational waves. Special relativity showed that space and time are not absolute. Instead they are inextricably linked in a four-dimensional combination called spacetime. An object"s number of dimensions is the number of independent directions in which movement is possible within the object. Path of an orbiting object actually spirals through spacetime as it moves forward in time. We can move through three dimensions in space (x, y, z) We our motion through time is in one direction (t)