PARADIGM 9: REFERENCE FRAMES

Open Website

Welcome to the Reference Frames Paradigm open website. Here you can view a selection of materials which are being developed for this course. The rest of the materials are password protected, to preserve our copyright during development. If you are interested in further information, particularly if you might be interested in trying some of our materials in your classroom, please contact:

Corinne Manogue

Professor of Physics

Department of Physics

Oregon State University

Corvallis, OR 97331-6507

(541) 737-1695

corinne@physics.oregonstate.edu

Course Description

Sample Text Materials

• The Foucault Pendulum

  These are the class notes for part of a lecture during the first third of the course, currently used in conjunction with Marion and Thornton, Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems, 4th edition.

• Relativistic Mechanics

  These are the class notes for a lecture during the middle third of the course, currently used in conjunction with Griffiths, Introduction to Electrodynamics, 3rd edition. This lecture covers relativistic conservation laws, and emphasizes the use of the description of Lorentz transformations as hyperbolic rotations.

• The Geometry of Special Relativity (preface & table of contents)

  Nearing completion, this expands on the lecture notes used for the last two-thirds of the course, covering special relativity. The above notes on relativistic mechanics are incorporated. It is intended to be used independently of any existing text, but could also be used to supplement an existing text on special relativity.

• Hyperbola Geometry and Applications

  An excerpt from The Geometry of Special Relativity, introducing hyperbolic trigonometry and relating it to special relativity. This language is used throughout the book.

Sample Visualization Activities

• Earth Hockey

  These animations show the result of shooting a hockey puck on a perfectly round, frictionless, rotating Earth. They form part of a Maple lab during the first third of the course which explores motion relative to the Earth.

  These animations are included in the National Curve Bank; a direct link is
      http://curvebank.calstatela.edu/earth/earth.htm

If you have comments or suggestions, please contact corinne@physics.oregonstate.edu
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