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Proposal of an experimental strategy to introduce relativity in elementary physics courses

Roberto Assumpcao
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Abstract

This contribution shows that the main topics of Relativity can be discussed at an elementary level and in a considerable extent - including the formal results of "Time Dilation" and "Lorentz Contraction" - by a minor modification of the usual mathematical formalism employed to describe uniform and accelerated motion. The proposed strategy begins with a "free-fall" experiment, followed by a discussion of the results in order to include deviations of the experimental data with respect to the conventional kinematics model.

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Roberto Assumpcao. 2005-07-19. Proposal of an experimental strategy to introduce relativity in elementary physics courses. https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0301010

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