Related Resources

Links on OCW

8.224 Exploring Black Holes: General Relativity and Astrophysics
This OCW course includes videos and/or slides for most of the lectures as taught by MIT Professors Edmund Bertschinger and Edwin F. Taylor.

Links on the Web

Museum of Natural History

The physics page of the Index Librorum Liberorum site contains many links to relativity papers and images, including Einstein's original 1905 paper on special relativity and an explanation of special relativity using a "C-Ship."

Einstein Cell Action linked from World Year of Physics site. This is an animation in English, French, or German of Einstein explaining the theory of special relativity. Designed to be entertaining.

Tufts OCW: Physics for Humanists - covers topics of modern physics featuring lecture notes, assignments, and exams.

Special and General Relativity

Einstein Online covers topics of special and general relativity as well as the relationship between relativity and quantum theory.

The Modern Revolution in Physics, by Benjamin Crowell. The chapter on relativity features interesting images. Available in HTML and PDF versions.

Al's Relativistic Adventures: This cartoon animation introduces the concepts of special relativity, at a level easily accessible to high schoolers (or even younger students), winner of Pirelli Relativity Challenge.

Kip Thorne: "Einstein's General Relativity, from 1905 to 2005"—interesting and accessible video lecture by Kip Thorne, the Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, on General Relativity, synched with lecture slides.

Einstein Light: Short video animation modules explain Einstein's theory of relativity, with longer text and picture documents explaining the concepts in more detail. From the University New South Wales in Sydney.

Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes is a joint Caltech, Cornell University project explaining special and general relativity.

American Institute of Physics site offering a thorough and impressive online exhibit on the life and accomplishments of Einstein, including the development of special and general relativity and quantum theory.

University of Oregon site featuring materials from a course in 21st Century Science covers relativity, quantum, and time travel (plus a broad range of other topics in modern science.

Time Travel

This PBS site contains articles and resources on the possibility of time travel related to a Nova program on the subject. Features an interview with Carl Sagan and links to visualizations and other material.

Site by science writer John Gribbin featuring a collection of articles on the feasibility of time travel.

Video by Paul Davies of Imperial College on the feasibility of time travel

Quantum Mechanics

Site by science writer John Gribbin featuring a collection of articles on quantum mysteries.

Three video lectures by Hans Bethe: Quantum Physics Made Relatively Simple synchronized with slides emphasizing talking points.

Homepage Image

Einstein from Wikimedia Commons

Interesting Images

NASA of a general relativity experiment

Compton Scattering

Images of a solar eclipse from a 1919 test of general relativity: Image A; Image B

Image of wavefunctions of energy states in a quantum well

Image of probability densities of energy states in a quantum well

Image of a possible means of time travel using wormholes