ABSTRACT
Particle physics is concerned with understanding the behavior of the natural world in the most reductionistic manner possible. This chapter reviews the basics of special relativity. An event is defined as something that occurs at a specific place and time, along with all necessary preconditions and unavoidable consequences. It is something that happens in the real world, such as a supernova, an earthquake, or the fall of a raindrop. The importance of this phenomenon in particle physics occurs in the construction of accelerators – as the particles move at high velocities down an accelerator tube the effective length of the pipe is shortened in their direction of motion, and must be taken into account in the design parameters of the machine. In particle physics we see this phenomenon manifest in decay rates of unstable particles: they take longer to decay the faster they are moving.
