Hello, everybody! Last semester, I wrote my honors thesis on some of Albert Einstein’s work, specifically special and general relativity. In my research, I came across a number of calculations relating to the application of relativity in astrophysics and cosmology that I did not include in my thesis because they didn’t fit the narrative. I thought it might be fun to go back and work through some of these calculations because they are very interesting and as math undergraduates, we hardly get any exposure to relativity or astrophysics (assuming we aren’t also majoring in physics). Most of these will be quite simple astrophysical calculations that help to build a bigger picture of our universe as described by relativity, so you won’t need to have taken any specific classes to stay with me. We’ll talk about black holes and neutron stars and time travel and some other cool, nerdy stuff! I’ll also indulge myself for a minute or two and talk about why relativity is so beautiful and important.
I hope to see you all there!
Very much enjoyed this presentation. Much of the basic knowledge presented here was some stuff I had a decent handle on. Not the specific equations and there relations to each other, but using words and pictures to show how the universe works and to think that the same “force” for lack of a better word is used to describe anything at any size, either microscopic or galactic sized. Everything in our system is relative to one another and so one just need to figures out the proportion of one thing to another. I have really taken much science or physics classes since senior year of hs about 5+ years ago and so I honestly am not really sure how some of these knowledge seems somewhat second hand to me, but my thinking at this moment is that I have absorbed it through the universe simply by viewing it, it showed itself to me. I believe science and religion/spirituality are current on course for a crash course and will have to come to some agreements and arguments in the near future. That’s all I have to say about the topic at this time.
As for singularities. I do not think they exist. There is no real center of a infinite radius circle. Or another way to think about it is that everyone point within the circle is the radius; The center of the circle is located at every point and there is no central location.
I believe the next step for using the ideas of Einstein are not yet applicable until we are able to harvest more data. The next step should be attempting to create an atmosphere on another planet. Studying our universal is probably much easier when we have multiple habitable location around our galaxy which would be able to aid in helping seeing larger patterns and increase our accuracy of calculations.
As for using this information to travel more quickly and bend space. One would just need to find an element or compound who has natural exponential decay and growth density properties. To travel really far you need to make an objects density increase to very large amounts and then decrease to slow down. Of course this is all theoretical and one would also probably need to surround oneself in this object and not just be on ship for the object will move but not the ship. So one must be enclosed in the object and then have a way of escaping the closed object after its density decreases enough. There are some metals I’ve see that increase density as it is burned. I also hope expanding our habitat-able planets will lead to an increase in diverse resources. One could try mixing steel and iron to make bronze. If we found new materials on other planets that contain an atmosphere, we could blend and make new elements with such desired properties.
Hi Jonathan! This was a super interesting presentation! The whole space-time continuum thing goes way over my head, and I have such a hard time understanding how all of these things in the universe happen. In general, I can’t think about space for too long without getting a little lost because there is something just so mysterious and strange about all of it. Your presentation was basically all new information to me. I really enjoyed the pictures, and they definitely helped someone not familiar with your topic better understand exactly what you were talking about. It was very clear that you are extremely knowledgeable about this subject. You did a really great job of trying to explain these very complex notions in a way so that even someone like me was able to follow along. I thought the thing that you said about GPS devices using a time dilation was really cool, and something I had never thought about before. Congrats on making and presenting a really amazing presentation!
Great job on the presentation! It was a well-organized and thoughtful presentation. I get to learn about the application of relativity in astrophysics and cosmology in which I believed that these applications play a major role in advancing our society. The reason is that we get to understand if there is any other galaxy, the universe outside of our world. Before I had no idea if there exists another universe and what Earth looks like? But now I have some basic understanding. It was a well informative presentation. Thank you for your presentation.
Hi Jon, nice job on the presentation. I enjoyed learning a bit more on how math is involved in more complex fields, as you assumption of not knowing much about physics is correct. The information was presented very nicely. Would you mind sending a copy of your thesis? It sounds great and I would love to learn more.