relativity

From Bloomberg Quicktake, Feb. 23. 2021: In this video, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln adds his perspective on time dilation and how it affects time and gravity. This precise measurement of time will allow scientists to measure plates, large movements deep below earth’s surface and climate change.

From University of Birmingham, Jan. 13, 2021: Fermilab will take part in an international collaboration, led by Cardiff University, on quantum-enhanced interferometry for new physics. The project’s four table-top experiments may help explore new parameter spaces of photon-dark matter interaction, and seek answers to the long-standing question at the heart of modern science: How can gravity be united with the other fundamental forces?

From University of Strathclyde-Glasgow, Jan. 13, 2021: Fermilab will take part in an international collaboration, led by Cardiff University, on quantum-enhanced interferometry for new physics. The project’s four table-top experiments may help explore new parameter spaces of photon-dark matter interaction, and seek answers to the long-standing question at the heart of modern science: How can gravity be united with the other fundamental forces?

From University of Glasgow, Jan. 13, 2021: Fermilab will take part in an international collaboration, led by Cardiff University, on quantum-enhanced interferometry for new physics. The project’s four table-top experiments may help explore new parameter spaces of photon-dark matter interaction, and seek answers to the long-standing question at the heart of modern science: How can gravity be united with the other fundamental forces?

Of the known fundamental forces, gravity stands out. Rather than being caused by force-carrying particles jumping between matter particles, gravity can be explained as the bending of space and time. In episode 13 of Subatomic Stories, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln briefly sketches Einstein’s theory of general relativity — our current theory of gravity — and mentions some tests that prove that it’s right.

The inability of scientists to create a theory of quantum gravity arises from long-standing tensions between general relativity and quantum mechanics. There have been few approaches with any success. Don Lincoln explains one of the few promising ideas, called loop quantum gravity, in this 9-minute video.

Two cars, heading toward one another head-on at a velocity, have a closing velocity of twice that velocity. But at very high speeds, this intuition of adding velocities wrong. In this 9-minute video, Don Lincoln explains how to add velocities in a relativistic environment.

Relativity has many mind-bending consequences, but one of the weirdest is the idea that objects in motion get shorter. Bizarre or not, Don Lincoln explains just how it works in this 11-minute video.