The Theory of Relativity for Dummies
Almost everyone has heard of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Many of us have learned about the Newtonian laws of physics growing up. Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton are both household names, however, most of us have either forgot or we never fully grasped the implications of their breakthroughs in the first place. So, let’s take a closer look into who they were and make sense of their tenets.
Einstein and Newton were both fascinating men. It might be striking to you that their most fascinating quality wasn’t their adroit personality, but rather, how surprisingly human they were. Yes, they were in-fact quite ordinary for geniuses.
A day in the life of Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton was born in England in 1643 to a farmer who died three months before his birth. He was also a grandma’s boy, having spent most of his childhood in the care of his maternal grandmother following his mother’s remarriage.
As a young adult, his family tried to persuade him to become a farmer; however, once that plan fell through, he eventually enrolled at the University of Cambridge’s Trinity College in 1661.
It was during this time that Newton developed his engouement for philosophy; some of his favorite works came from prominent philosophers like René Descartes, the great mathematician, natural scientist, and metaphysician. These works had a profound effect on him, just in time for the advent of the Great Plague.
The plague ravaged Cambridge and sent Newton home packing with plenty of new theories in calculus, light, and gravity on his mind. He returned to Cambridge in 1667, and the following year constructed the first reflecting telescope. He eventually joined the Royal Society of London in 1671, and In 1687 he published his famous three laws of physics, “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy).
Newtonian Physics
Newton’s three laws of physics were as follows:
1. Every object in a state of uniform motion (in a straight line) will remain in that state of motion unless an external force acts on it.
2. Force equals mass times acceleration (F=MA); in other words, a force will cause a change in velocity; conversely, a change in velocity will generate a force.
3. For every action (force), there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Newton’s laws of physics paved the road for the great Age of Enlightenment. Alright, maybe Newton was a little less ordinary than I made him out to be. I can assure you, however, the man who discovered a crucial flaw in his teleological method was much more normal.
A day in the life of Albert Einstein
Einstein’s story is much less admirable. The smartest man in history didn’t even pass his entry exam at the Swiss Federal Institute. To boot, he was a 15-year-old drop-out and was somewhat of a libertine throughout his entire life.
In “Watch: Meet Albert Einstein”, Alison Walsh boils down Einstein’s life in just 10 incredibly fascinating quick facts that you’d be hard-pressed not to find under a Snapple cap:
1. He renounced his German citizenship when he was 16.
2. He married the only female student in his physics class.
3. He had a 1,427-page FBI file.
4. He had an illegitimate baby.
5. He paid his first wife his Nobel Prize money for a divorce.
6. He married his first cousin.
7. He was a civil rights activist before the civil rights movement.
8. His son was institutionalized for most of his adult life.
9. He had a rocky friendship with “the father of chemical warfare.”
10. He had an affair with an alleged Russian spy.
I know what you’re thinking; he doesn’t sound like one of the smartest men in history –this does not compute. Context is always the key to a greater understanding… so, allow me to fill it in.
Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, to a middle-class family in Munich. Growing up, he enjoyed music, mathematics, and science, and playing the violin. It wasn’t long before he became exceptional at math and science, studying calculus at the mere age of 12. In 1894, he dropped out of school to move to Switzerland.
Once in Switzerland, he re-enrolled in school and applied to the esteemed Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich, two years ahead of the other applicants. He did unbelievably well in math and physics. However, because there was such a strong focus on those two subjects at that time, he lacked extremely in all the other non-science/mathematics subjects. After taking some time to study, the young dilettante returned later that year to retake and subsequently pass the entry exam.
Einstein became a Swiss Citizen in 1901, began working for the Federal Office for Intellectual Property (known now as IPI) in Bern and published five papers that shifted the paradigm.
Einstein was a charming, self-absorbed individual who tended to mold the world around his mental fixations. His repudiation of accepting the world at face value fueled every paradigm-shifting observation he ever made. For instance, he made his first ground-breaking discovery while ruminating with his friend over how fast it would take light to reach them from different clock towers.
Einsteinian Physics
Before Einstein, people believed that time was like a wristwatch on somebody’s arm, beating at a steady and uniformed rate throughout the universe regardless of the location; controlled by God. In Einstein’s world, however, the one true constant was light. He believed that the ticking of the watch was actually the clicking of electricity turning into magnetism, this being the steady pace of light itself. He discovered that light has a fixed speed, and time slowed down as you approach it.
It’s complicated, however, another example that might help you understand this notion: imagine a train speeding along a track. The more energy it’s given, the heavier it becomes. Because the speed of light is the cosmic speed limit, nothing can go faster; no matter how much energy this train amasses, it will eventually top out. Once it hits this threshold, the train can’t go any faster, and therefore the excess energy becomes mass. Einstein thus proposed a deep unity between energy, mass, and light; E=MC². This was the single most significant discovery in all of physics.
Einstein’s theory proved that every piece of matter has an enormous amount of energy within it. Matter is nothing but the condensation of mass amounts of energy, and if it were to be unlocked, that energy would be capable of unleashing a force equal to that of an atomic bomb.
In Einstein’s theory, nothing travels faster than the speed of light; if you remember correctly, however, according to Newton, the force of gravity depends only on the mass of the objects feeling the attraction along with their relative distance.
To see a living example of how quick light passes information, one only has to observe a lightning strike. When we see a lightning bolt, we don’t hear the sound until a few moments later. Taking a moment to unpack this phenomenon, we know that the speed of sound at which the thunder is traveling is 750 miles per hour. On the other hand, the photons traveling from the bolt of lightning to the lens of our eye is a staggering 670 million miles per hour.
Einstein’s theory asserts that the speed of light is the universal speed limit for which information can travel between two points. Contrarily, Newton’s theory suggests that information would have to travel at infinite speed for it to be true. By Newton’s logic, if the Sun were to suddenly explode, Earth would feel the effect of the changed gravitational attraction instantaneously.
Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity
Einstein sought to disprove Newton’s Theory of Gravity because he could not fathom the idea that gravity could instantly propagate. This is what lead him to the Theory of Special Relativity. For the same previously stated situation, Einstein’s special relativity deduced that it would take light (or information) eight minutes to travel the 93-million -mile distance between the Sun and Earth, therefore, it is impossible to receive the information about the Sun’s explosion in any less amount of time.
Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity proposed that nothing travels faster than the speed of light. He determined that the laws of physics for non-accelerating observers are all the same. He projected that the speed of light in a vacuum was independent of all motion of all observers, concluding that space and time were actually interwoven, creating a fabric of one single continuum known as space-time.
An example of special relativity would be to imagine an astronaut going incredibly fast relative to Earth. The astronaut would measure time ticking slower than an earthbound observer because time for the astronaut is essentially slowing down.
Another example is a lightning strike. A strike of lightning will be seen before the thunder is heard. This is because light is the fastest element of that lightning strike, relaying visible information to our eyes way faster than that of the thunder. Light travels at 670 million miles per hour, while sound only travels at a meager 750 miles per hour.
Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity
The Theory of General Relativity had to do with gravity. It was about the interaction of masses with one another, determining that massive objects cause a distortion in space and time, which is felt as gravity. An example of this would be setting a large body in the center of a trampoline. The body would press down and create a dimple on the trampoline. If a marble were rolled around the outer edge, it would ultimately spiral inward toward the body, emulating the same pull found in the way that gravity of a planet pulls at rocks in space.
Who Wins?
I’m sure you’re wondering how on Earth I could have even pondered that these two superhuman geniuses were, in any which way, ordinary men. Well, they were, and I’ll explain. These men didn’t just stumble upon their theories. They didn’t just achieve their breakthroughs through providence. They were born with the same amount of knowledge as all other people. We all had to start from zero. Instead, they exercised what most of us willingly avoid: grit, passion, fervent fixation, creativity, the ability to detach from material life while maintaining a firm footing in reality, and an unquenchable curiosity.
Einstein and Newton both sagaciously succeeded in moving the pendulum of humanity forward towards progress. So then, who wins in our battle of Einstein vs. Newton? Sorry to break it to you, but everyone lives at the end of this movie. Both of these guys are winners in my book. In the words of Janna Levin, “Newton was so right about so many things that it seems ungenerous to dwell on where he was wrong.” Einstein gleaned his ground-breaking discoveries from Newton’s nascent observations. Therefore, it seems Newton was just paying it forward when he famously penned in his letter on February 5, 1675: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
Works Cited
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Popova, M. (2017, January 18). Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: The Story Behind Newton’s Famous Metaphor for How Knowledge Progresses. Retrieved June 13, 2020, from https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/02/16/newton-standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants/
Rives, D. (2014, November 06). David Rives. Retrieved June 13, 2020, from https://davidrivesministries.org/the-rives-theory-of-relativity/
Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property. (n.d.). Albert Einstein and the IPI. Retrieved June 13, 2020, from https://www.ige.ch/en/about-us/the-history-of-the-ipi/einstein.html
Walsh, A. (2020, May 07). 10 Things You (Probably) Didn’t Know About Einstein. Retrieved June 13, 2020, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/04/einstein-facts-science-genius/
