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A Brief Review of Special Relativity

1.1 INTRODUCTION

It is in terms of particles and fields that all natural phenomena are accounted for. The behaviour of bulk matter under terrestrial conditions, is governed by non-relativistic classical mechanics, which is an adequate formulation for a large range of phenomena in which the speed of light is taken as infinite and the value of Planck’s constant is assumed to be zero. It is based on the assumption of instantaneous propagation of the interactions and embodies the concepts of absolute space and absolute time. However, when the velocities involved become comparable to the velocity of light, certain modifications in measures of length and time become essential, in order to explain the experimentally ...

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