Pundit
JF-Expert Member
- Feb 4, 2007
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- #21
Pundit
tell me more about Einstein's theory of relativity before I proceed to confusing you.
Wikipedia wamesema
In physics, special relativity is a fundamental theory about the structure of space and time, developed by Albert Einstein in 1905.[1] This theory revolutionized the fundamental understanding of physical quantities such as space, time, momentum, energy, and mass.
Now I do not claim to fully grasp relativity, for even a hundred years after it's introduction, it is perplexing not only to the lay enthusiast, but also to specialists.
But nevertheless I took an interest in it to know the basics at least. To understand relativity one has to understand the difference between the Einstenian world (relativity) and the classical Newtonian world.
In the classical Newtonian world, things are absolute, there is one ticking clock for the entire universe that synchonizes time all over the universe, masses are also absolute and so are lenghts.
The Newtonian concepts are pretty much valid when used under earthlike conditions, but when you attain speeds closer to the speed of light, or are near a very strong gravitation field, such as near a star or a black hole, the Newtonian classical equations do not hold and Einsteins Relativistic equations must come to the rescue.
Entire books have been written on the subject and I feel I cannot do justice to the questions in a simple and quick thread. So I will try to point out some illustrative features and examples of relativity at work.
1.Speed has an effect on time , the more you speed up, the more time slow. And I do not mean that in the sense of Time Zones.I mean that as in the more you speed up, the more the passage of time is slowed down.This is documented in a phenomena known as "Time Dilation".If you have a twin sister, born on the same day, and you somehow have access to this jet that can attain 1% of the speed of light, and you board that jet while leaving your sister here on earth, every second you will spend on that jet will be equal to about 22.4 seconds on earth, meaning if you leave your twin sister on earth at age 20 and spend one year on board a jet that constantly travels at 299,700 km/s (1% of c) after one year you will return to earth at age 21 only to find your twin sister aged about 42 years, meaning one year on the jet will be equal to about 22 years on earth.The speed on the jet will dilate 22 years into one year.
2. Speed has an effect on mass.The more you speed the more massive your become.This is true of any body with a rest mass. In fact, the reason the speed of light is said to be the speed barrier of the universe, and nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, solely rest on the fact that for any object with a rest mass to attain the speed of light, it will have to attain an infinite mass, now we know that no object can attain an infinite mass, and even if it were to somehow attain an infinite mass, what energy is going to move infinite mass very slightly? Let alone at the speed of light?
Furthermore, for any object to move at the speed of light, the time dilation will be so great that time itself will seem to stand still for that object.In essence time seems to stand still for electromagnetic waves moving at the speed of light.If one can could move faster than the speed of light that person could essentially move backwards in time
Relativity also manifest itself in the phenomena of length contraction. And of course you have the world famous e = mc squared.
There are so many things on this topic but I just wanted to touch on the most obvious faces here and some aspects that may be relevant to my question.
The effects of gravitation on mass and time are further discussed in Einstein General Relativity Theory.