Gravitational time dilation in a high school lesson

Abstract

In almost all countries, the Ministry of Public Education has introduced the topics of special and general relativity into the high school curriculum. For example, in Italy the teaching of so-called modern physics (quantum mechanics and relativity) was introduced in the last year of high school. The students are approximately 18 years old and, although the arguments are addressed in an introductory and qualitative way, they are also a topic for the final exam. Einstein’s theory fascinates young students, but it is not always easy to explain the revolutionary effects it predicts. For this reason, we have organized a series of in-depth lessons trying to derive the space-time distortions in a way suitable for the young age of the students. In this frontline we summarize a derivation, suitable for high school pupils, regarding gravitational time dilation.