Wuppertal 2015 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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DD: Fachverband Didaktik der Physik

DD 17: Postersitzung

DD 17.36: Poster

Dienstag, 10. März 2015, 14:45–16:15, Foyer Ebene G.10

Relativity: The Double View of Nature — •Martin Erik Horn — HWR Berlin

Hundred years after the invention of general relativity by Albert Einstein it is about time to finally bridge the gap between school mathematics and the mathematics of general relativity.

Following Dirac, the first step to build this bridge should be to translate special relativity and rectangular coordinates into the mathematical framework of general relativity. In a first paper it has been shown that this translation can be achieved didactically in a rather elegant way by applying four- or five-dimensional Geometric Algebra (also called Spacetime Algebra).

Now the second step follows: special relativity will be translated into the mathematical framework of oblique axes, again using Geometric Algebra. As Geometric Algebra allows a simple construction of reciprocal frames, this translation process can be achieved by mathematical means accessible to students of upper secondary school level.

And this translation process reveals dramatic features about the mathematical structures of relativity. So we all say: Happy birthday, relativity! You are a twin, born as one schizophrenic child. Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde your two twin brothers of right- and left-handed descriptions of nature are forced into one and only one double-sided mathematical picture.

Thus relativity reveals a double view of nature.