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Enter the Relativity Challenge
An anonymous reader writes "Any slashdotters wanna pick up a lazy 25,000 Euros? All you have to do is explain Einstein's theory of relativity in a five minute multimedia presentation. The Pirelli Group have laid down this 'Relativity Challenge' to anyone as part of the International Year of Physics. Entries close on 31 March 2005."
...just remember that PowerPoint is not "multimedia."
Yeah, right.
Explain females to ANYONE in 4 minutes, and I'll build you a bridge from san diego, california to Honolulu Hawaii.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Every book I have ever encountered re: Relativity (and I have about 6) spends about 3 lines on the '... and the speed of light is constant' part and about 180 pages on the almost trivial vector math to determine the relative motion of an object from two different frames of reference (which IMHO, is just a huge, long-winded setup of the fact that trivial vector math doesn't work). BUT the fact that the speed of light is constant is the thing that breaks the model and no one ever explains that! It's just referred to axiomatically. In the book I would like to find, the whole book would be about how and why the speed of light is constant and then in the appendix they could state 'And oh, by the way, the speed of light being constant means that time dilation occurs and Lorenz tranformations have to be used instead of trivial vector math in order to figure out the position of objects in space and time'. Anyone know that title of that book?
From this explanation. Twin A stays on Earth and Twin B sets off in a spaceship going 0.995 c (time and space will dilate to 1/10th). He reaches a point C that is 9.995 light-years away and heads back at the same speed. Let's assume accelleration is instantaneous. When Twin B leaves earth, both twins agree their clocks read zero. When Twin B reaches point C, Twin A sees that his clock reads 10 years and Twin B's clock reads 1 year. Twin B thinks his clock reads 1 year and Twin A's clock reads 0.1 year. As soon as he turns around, Twin A still thinks B's clock reads 1 year and his clock reads 10 years, but Twin B thinks his clock reads 1 year and Twin A's clock reads 19.9 years. It all depends on your frame of reference, and the accelleration changes that.
Personally, I don't think I will ever understand it. I think it's all philosophical because it is dependant on definitinitions. What does "observe" mean. What is "simultaneous"? Until you start studying special relativity, these terms are pretty easy to understand. I think physicists should come up with new words to describe these relativistic concepts and not use "observe" and "simultaneous" anymore in physics discussions. I have a special relativity textbook and the book contradicts itself on the meaning of those words in the first few chapters.
I have a poster of Einstein on my wall, with a quote:
"Do not worry about your troubles in mathematics. I assure you, mine are much greater."
I might not have that exactly right, but as I understand it he was struggling with the math too.