Anybody here to explain the Theory of relativity in simple terms ?

Question

Plz explain the theory using own words as simple as possible. It will be better if u illustrate the theory with simple example.

Answer 1

Special Relativity:
1)There is no way to distinguish uniform motion from being at rest.
2) Also, the speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers.
From these two postulates together, it is possible to determine all the properties of time dilation and length contraction that comprise so much of the literature of relativity. Essentially, if two obervers are moving with respect to each other, they will each see the others clocks go slower and their length in the direction of motion contracted.

General Relativity:
Space time can be locally described via special relativity, but on the global scale, there is curvature. Bodies move along the straightest possible curves in this curved geometry. The apparent paths are curved as if there was a force acting on the body. Gravity is the name given to this force. The curvature of spacetime is related to the mass, energy, and momentum densities around each point.

Answer 2

Any attempt at a short explanation is bound to fail. What you need is a good book. I found Space and Time in Special Relativity by N. David Mermin very helpful to my understanding. He goes through it very carefully and slowly enough so you can digest it. I recommend his book highly.

For an advanced treatment of how relativity comes out of electrodynamics, David J. Griffiths's Introduction to Electrodynamics book is first rate. You'd better work through that book with some help, though. Or, you could just skip most of everything and just read the relativity chapters!

Answer 3

In Newtons theory of gravity, the gravitational effect happens instantaneously. However in fact changes in gravity move at the speed of light. In this way, Newtonian gravity is inconsistent with special relativity. General relativity is a theory of gravity that takes account of the finite speed of gravitational forces, and is consistent with special relativity. Gravity is modelled mathematically as a curvature of space and time. You should note that relativity is not something that can be simply decribed in words alone. It is at heart a mathematical theory of gravity.

Answer 4

There are issues involved that are simply too difficult to explain except by saying that 'That's the way it is because we observe it to be that way'.

None of relativity theory is intuitive even to adults.

Your best bet is to say that nothing can travel faster than light and that objects that try to move real fast will be observed to run slowly, get smaller along their direction of motion and gain mass.

The explanations for these things require considerable mathematical sophistication.

Answer 5

throw a stone and urself from the top of a ten storey building at the same time.before u hit the ground u will feel the stone and u are life long freinds but a few second later u shall go even higher up and the stone shall be relatively fur away from u !!!

Answer 6

Like in that shark movie (can't remember the name at the moment) - all is relative , like when your holding on to a hot frying pan a second can seem like an hour but when your hand are on a beautiful woman a hour can seem like a second.

Answer 7

Which one?

Galilean? Newtonian? Special? General?

Answer 8

speed and distance traveled were dependent on the frame of reference of the observer. For example, if you are on a train and you roll a ball in the same direction the train is moving at a speed of 5 feet per second, you will observe the ball moving 5 feet in one second. Suppose however that the train is moving down the tracks at 10 feet per second. A person standing next to the tracks will observe the ball moving at 15 feet per second and traveling 15 feet in the same one second. So who's right? The both are, but from their own frame of reference.

But how fast is the ball moving? The Earth is rotating and orbiting the Sun. The sun is orbiting in this galaxy, which is in turn moving away from the big bang. So, taking all these motions together, how fast is the ball moving through absolute space?

More than 100 years ago people discovered the speed of light was a constant. In 1887 a couple of scientists, Albert Michelson and Edward Morley devised a method they believed would be able to measure the absolute speed and direction that they were moving through absolute space. By shining a light in different directions, and accurately measuring the time it took to reflect off a mirror, one should see different times if one is moving through space. For example, if you are moving at one mile an hour less than the speed of light, and you shine a light in front of you, shouldn't you see the light coming out at only 1 mile and hour? That's what they thought, and they made their measurement.

To their surprise, the light took the same time in every direction, leaving them to either conclude that they were dead stopped right smack in the center of the universe, or something else was happening they didn't understand. They repeated the experiment at different times, knowing the Earth was spinning, that in case they were at absolute rest at one time of the day they should be moving at another, and the results were the same. No one could explain this because it appeared to violate the laws of physics.


Einstein and Relative Time
One of Einstein's strengths was that he's someone who was comfortable thinking outside the box. Einstein concluded that since they measured the speed of light to be the same in all frames of reference, but the distance the light traveled differed between observers moving at different speeds, and since distance is speed multiplied by time, then Einstein concluded that different observers must see time differently. That the speed that one progressed through time varied with your frame of reference and relative motion to the object you are observing. Einstein theorized, and it was later proven, that good clocks will not always agree in what time it is because they move through time at different speeds.

So, if someone is moving at 99% of the speed of light and shines a light in front of them, one would think it would only go 1% faster, and for a stationary observer (whatever that really means) it would look that way. However, from the point of view of the person moving, it looks to them as if the light is moving away at 100% of the speed of light. How can that be? Well, suppose that the fast moving person is moving into the future at a faster rate than the stationary observer, who is aging faster. Because they are moving into the future 100 times faster, light appears to be moving 100 times faster than it really is. Thus the distortion of time causes the laws of physics to be the same in any frame of reference and all observers agree on the speed of light, but do not agree on time.

If you got in a rocket ship and accelerated you could go what seems infinitely fast to you. You could travel to a star 100 light years away and get they by lunch, turn around, and get back to Earth the same day. But you will find that everyone else is 200 years (and one day) older than you are. From their perspective, you were traveling very close to the speed of light and it take 200 years for light to get to that star and back. But to you, it was only a day. Your aging slowed down because you move forward through time faster. What you observe as linear acceleration in space that obeys Newton's laws, isn't what really happens. You start out accelerating in space but as you gain speed you start accelerating through time instead. You can only move at the speed of light in space, but can move infinitely fast through time.

Answer 9

good answer bolan