Modernizing Newton, to work at any speed

Abstract

Modification of three ideas underlying Newton's original world view, with only minor changes in context, might offer two advantages to introductory physics students. First, the students will experience less cognitive dissonance when they encounter relativistic effects. Secondly, the map-based Newtonian tools that they spend so much time learning about can be extended to high speeds, non-inertial frames, and even (locally, of course) to curved-spacetime.

7 pages (0 figs, 27 refs) RevTeX4; for more see http://www.umsl.edu/~fraundor/a1toc.html