what is the basic concept of relativity theory?

Question

The E=mC^2

Answer 1

Relativity comes from that the speed of light is constant (everyone sees light moving at the same speed), and that you can't have both this and everyone experiencing space and time the same way.
This then leads to a link between space and time into something some folks call spacetime. Now just as you can think of something having momentum through space you can think of something as having momentum through time. Momentum is a physicsy word for that kind of umph you feel when you are hit by a moving object, an aspect of motion related to both speed and mass (mass is what you would probably think of as weight). More mass = more momentum, more speed = more momentum. Hopefully that gets that idea across
Anyhoo, so the E=m C^2 thing can be thought of the momentum of something that is sitting still in space but moving through time.

Answer 2

the basic cincept is that a substance can change form from energy to matter and vice versa. the energy of a substance is equal to the mass of the subatance in kilograms times the speed of light squared. the other main part is that the amount of matter and therefor energy in the universe is finite. "matter can neither be created nor destroyed" and also that all the energy in the universe is heading towards total entropy (the shift towardsrandomness in a system) thus making the question of will the universe end in fire or ice (frost), entropy being an end in ice caused by a lack of kinetic energy or heat

Answer 3

E=mc^2 doesn't really define Einstein's theory of special relativity, but it is one of the results of his theory. We'll skip general relativity theory because that's a little more complicated. The basic concept of special relativity, as well as I can explain it, is this: Say you're floating somewhere in deep space at a constant speed. To you, since you feel no acceleration or deceleration, it seems like you're not moving, since you have no frame of reference. All of a sudden, here comes your friend floating past you at 10 miles per hour. Your friend, however, thinks she's standing still and you're moving past HER at 10 miles per hour, in the opposite direction. Who's moving? The point is you both have an equal right to claim that you are at rest and the other is moving. You're both right -- it's all relative. Constant speed motion does not exist without a benchmark. You can say you are moving at 600 miles per hour over the Earth in a jetliner. Your benchmark is the Earth. At the same time, you are moving at, say,10,000 miles per hour relative to the Sun. But if you don't compare your motion to anything, you can't really say you're moving. Now accelerated motion is different, and that's where Einstein's theory of general relativity comes in. Even with your eyes shut, if you fire up your rocket engines or whatever, you can feel you're moving, you don't need an outside reference. What Einstein was getting at is that, no matter how hard scientists tried, they could not see any variance in the speed of light, whether you're moving toward an approaching light beam, for example, or speeding away from it. You will observe the speed of that light beam as 186,000 miles per second, not a bit slower or a bit faster. Period. This is very counter-intuitive, but it has yet to be disproved, even though the methods of testing it have gotten more and more sophisticated since, what, about 1917 when Einstein first proposed the idea. What this means is that if the speed of light is constant no matter what, something has to give. In this case, it is time that is flexible. If you move at 60 mph in a car, if you persist at that speed for one hour, you will have traveled 60 miles. The formula is: Distance=Rate x Time. Hope I'm not boring you yet, but to continue I must introduce the idea of a photon clock. It is two mirrors, one above the other, one foot apart, where a photon (a light particle moving at 186,000 miles per second) is bouncing back and forth between the two mirrors. I'm too lazy to do the math right now, but say that photon can go back and forth between the two mirrors a billion times in one second. After a billion back-and-forths, a second will have elapsed on your clock. If that set of mirrors is sliding past you at a very high speed, near the speed of light, say, then that photon must travel a further distance, from your perspective, than if the two mirrors were not moving relative to you. This is because if the mirrors are zipping by you, the photon starts its trip to the top mirror, but by the time it gets there, its path, from your perspective, will not be straight up and down, because the top mirror is no longer there, it's already past you. It will be a diagonal path, so it is longer than the straight up-and-down path you would observe if the mirrors were not speeding past you. Since the photon can rightfully claim the mirrors are standing still and YOU are the one that's moving, as far as the photon is concerned, it's still moving straight up and down, and after a billion bounces, a second will have elapsed on "its clock." You, however, will measure a longer time, since the speed of light is constant and the photon has to travel farther, from your perspective. Going back to the formula D = R times T, you'll find that what changes in the formula is time. So the faster you move through space, the slower you move through time, relative to an observer in a non-moving frame of reference. In a way, we move through time at lightspeed. If you accelerate through space, the faster you go, the more your motion through time is diverted by your motion through space. At lightspeed, in theory, there is no time, which goes a long way towards explaining quantum weirdness, like the electron beam slit experiment (Google it if you want to) or the idea of non-locality (another Google item), where one partner of an electron pair will know what the other partner's spin is (a quantum mechanical concept) the instant you measure it, even if those partners are light years apart . But I digress. In summary, to use an oft-used line, it's all relative. By the way, Einstein wanted to call his theory "Invariance Theory" but the name "relativity" stuck. That's special relativity in a nutshell.

Answer 4

String idea is the least puzzling and maximum stylish description of actuality that we've, its unintuitive predictions in spite of the undeniable fact that. merely because something is outstanding does no longer advise that is pretend; particularly, if the idea holds as a lot as exam on a actual scale, it shows us that our type of actuality desires to regulate and under no circumstances the idea. That sounds like a noticeably audacious statement, yet evaluate the realities of quantum mechanics. QM makes further audacious and outrageous statements, yet its predictions in the course of the last century were 100% precise: NO prediction of quantum mechanics has EVER been shown to be erroneous by experimental attempting out. as well to, no concern of human inquiry for the era of historic previous has ever had such an unblemished list of fulfillment. In different words, insofar because that is accessible to describe something, quantum mechanics explains actuality appropriately; and string idea is the superb rationalization we've for the underpinnings of quantum mechanics. to that end, we've many, many strong motives to think string idea is ideal, in spite of if it type of feels no longer accessible contained in the context of our commonly used lives.