Special relativity has become a fundamental theory in the 20th century and is crucial for explaining many astrophysical phenomena. A central aspect of special relativity is the transformation from one reference frame to another. The following Lorentz transformation matrix gives the transformation from a frame at rest to a moving frame with velocity v along the z-axis:
( γ 0 0 γβ )
0 1 0 0
0 0 1 0
γβ 0 0 γ
where β = v/c with c being the speed of light in a vacuum, and γ is the Lorentz factor:
γ = 1 / 1 − β 2
(a) State and explain the two traditional postulates from which special relativity originates.
(b) Draw a plot of the Lorentz factor for 0 ≤ β ≤ 0.9 to see how its value changes.
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