Special Relativity, Electrodynamics, and General Relativity

John Benjamin Kogut, PhD, is an American theoretical physicist, specializing in high energy physics. He has contributed to the quark-parton model, light-cone quantization, quark confinement, lattice gauge theory, Quantum Chromodynamics (the field theory of quarks and gluons) in extreme environments (high temperatures and densities), and supercomputer simulations as a tool for theoretical physics. For 27 years Dr. Kogut was on the physics faculty of the Loomis Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, retiring in 2005 as professor emeritus.

• 1. Physics According to Newton - A World with No Speed Limit2. Space-Time Measurements According to Einstein3. Visualizing Relativity—Minkowski Diagrams and the Twins4. Lorentz Transformations (boosts), Addition of Velocities, and Invariant Intervals5. Illustrations and Problems in Space-Time Measurements6. Relativistic Dynamics. First Steps.7. Acceleration and Forces in Relativity. The Birth of Dynamical Fields.8. Boosting the Electrostatic Force, Electromagnetic Fields and More on Four Vectors9. Maxwell’s Equations of Electrodynamics and the Wave Equation10. Magnetism in the Lab, the Discovery of Relativity and the Way Forward11. Introduction to General Relativity12. Curvature, Strong Gravity and Gravitational WavesAppendix A. Physical Constants, Data, and Conversion FactorsB. Solutions to Selected Problems C. Mathematics BackgroundD. Theorems and Concepts of Vector CalculusE. Summary of FormulasF. The Wave Equation with Sources. The Four Vector Potential and the Lorenz GaugeG. Equation of Motion in Curved Space and Christoffel Symbols, Two Dimensional Surfaces and the Geodesic Deviation and Gravity Waves