= How to teach special relativity by John Stewart Bell
{c}
{tag=Work by John Stewart Bell}
{title2=1976}
{title2=Collected version: chapter 9, pages 67–80}
Publisher record: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511815676.011
Primary chapter scan: https://danielhoek.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Bell-How-to-teach-Special-Relativity.pdf
Originally published in Progress in Scientific Culture 1(2), 1976; reprinted in Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics. Pages 67–68 discuss the spaceship thread; pages 69–77 develop and interpret a dynamical charged-particle example. The warning about premature philosophizing occurs in note 10 on pages 79–80, after the discussion of replacing a concrete calculation by a general change-of-variables argument. The numerical-computation recommendation there is more specific than a blanket rejection of geometrical explanations.
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