Susskind

I discovered Leonard Susskind through NEQNET: Non-equilibrium Phenomena today.  I started to watch his first lecture on Modern Physics and was truly excited to see that his teaching was so available.  This first lecture really taught me some new things about the relationships of reference frames and how simple mathematically it really was.  What a rush to be able to watch a lecture like this!  In college, I only got one chance, and if my attention slipped, there was no rewinding.

Basically, in this first two hour lecture, Susskind showed that, for two reference frames moving with fixed velocity $v$ in relation to one another, two beliefs could be satisfied: 1) that a slowly moving particle in one frame had its velocity plus $v$ in the other, and 2) that in both frames the speed of light could still be a constant $c$.  Additionally, the $\beta$ correction factor came from a $\cosh$ and $\sinh$ formulation (which I had never seen).   And finally, for the first time, I understand the invariant quantity $d\tau = dt^2 - dx^2$, and how to apply it to the twin paradox.