Relativity
In my book, I noticed there is a "non-relativistic (newtonian) mechanics and relativity section". However, I do not understand how a relativity section deals with non-relativity. What does it mean by non-relativistic relativity?
Answer
I am not sure I completely understand the question, so I will try to answer a few things that might be going on here. Relativistic physics refers to dealing with kinematics and energy at very high speeds. Since nothing can move faster than the speed of light, physics gets (for lack of a better word) weird at speeds near the speed of light. If you are wondering how relativistic physics work with slower speeds, the answer is that technically the complicated relativistic equations apply for all speeds its just that at low speeds we can approximate the equations to equal the ones we are used to.
If you are instead wondering about the general idea of relativity that relativistic physics come from, there is something called Galilean relativity. This is the idea that the laws of motions are the same in all reference frames, or more simply that you can view any object (moving or otherwise) as being at rest and change the velocity and position of every other object accordingly and physics still works the same. With this, many 1-D kinematic equations become much easier, as two trains moving towards each other can be interpreted as one very fast train coming at a motionless train and the answer will be the same.
Hopefully you were wondering about one of those and not another interpretation that is eluding me.
Customer support service by UserEcho
I am not sure I completely understand the question, so I will try to answer a few things that might be going on here. Relativistic physics refers to dealing with kinematics and energy at very high speeds. Since nothing can move faster than the speed of light, physics gets (for lack of a better word) weird at speeds near the speed of light. If you are wondering how relativistic physics work with slower speeds, the answer is that technically the complicated relativistic equations apply for all speeds its just that at low speeds we can approximate the equations to equal the ones we are used to.
If you are instead wondering about the general idea of relativity that relativistic physics come from, there is something called Galilean relativity. This is the idea that the laws of motions are the same in all reference frames, or more simply that you can view any object (moving or otherwise) as being at rest and change the velocity and position of every other object accordingly and physics still works the same. With this, many 1-D kinematic equations become much easier, as two trains moving towards each other can be interpreted as one very fast train coming at a motionless train and the answer will be the same.
Hopefully you were wondering about one of those and not another interpretation that is eluding me.