ASTRON 2B03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Inertial Frame Of Reference, Non-Inertial Reference Frame, Equivalence Principle
28 Aug 2016
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Document Summary
Quantum physics: other breakthroughs came from electrical current passed through a gas, like neon signs. Shining a light through a prism will reveal precisely what radiation is present. In many light sources, only a few colours are represented, like radiation passed through hydrogen gas. Atoms will emit photons with very specific energies, e = hf. Einstein"s special theory of relativity did not account for gravity and accelerating reference frames. The general theory of relativity accounts for these. It took about 11 years to find a relativity theory that included gravity. We know that gravity decreases with distance by a factor of r^2, and depends on the masses of the objects involved. All objects, the same distance from a gravitationally larger object, and over small distances, will fall at the same rate. This makes the curvature of spacetime a physical variable, describing gravity. General relativity links space, time, energy, and matter.
