can somebody breakdown einsteins theory of relativity into laymans terms please?

Question

i need to prove a point... HELP

Answer 1

Einstein's theory of relativity

The faster you go, the slower time goes for you

The speeds required for this to be proven beyond any doubt have not been reached yet.

And philly, don't you know what LAYMAN'S TERMS means? I suggest you look THAT up. (Also try the dictionary, since you wrote a number of words wrong, including the name Philadelphia)

Answer 2

A Clerk in a Swiss patent office realized that Newton's law of gravity while right most of the time, was incorrect when talking about very large and very distant objects. This man's name was Albert Einstein. Einstein revised Newton's laws of gravity to make them more accurate. We call what he developed the theory of relativity.

It is actually two theories. The first is called Special Relativity. This theory states that it is impossible to determine whether or not you are moving unless you can look at another object.

Think about that. If you were in the middle of outer space far from any other objects how would you know whether or not you were moving? All movement is relative to other objects. For example, right now relative to your computer you are not moving at all, but relative to the distant quasars you are moving at near the speed of light. Relative to the Earth most meteorites move at about 25,000 miles an hour, but if you were standing on a meteorite looking at another meteorite going in the same direction as you, and at the same speed it would not appear to move at all.

Special Relativity also says that the speed of light is always constant. This means that no matter what you do to light it will always go the same speed. (Scientists are learning how to make light go faster but it is very difficult).

The Theory of General Relativity is the one which redefined the laws of gravity. It says that it is impossible to tell the difference between gravity and the force of inertia from a moving object.

In other words if you climb inside of a spinning spacecraft the inertia will cause you to move towards the outside walls in a way that would feel just like gravity. This is why future spacecraft designs often have large spinning cylinders attached to them.

The Theory of General Relativity also says that large objects cause outer space to bend in the same way a marble laid onto a large thin sheet of rubber would cause the rubber to bend. The larger the object, the further space bends. Just like a bowling ball would make the rubber sheet bend much more then the marble would.



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Answer 3

Relativity is such a massive and complex subject, it is very difficult to sum it up. But I will try.

There are two theories of relativity, special and general.

Special tell us that it is impossible to tell which of two observers is stationary, and which is in motion. If I stood at the side of the road, and you ran past me, it's easy to assume that I am stationary, and you are in motion. But in physics terms, that would not necessarily be the case, and there is no way of testing to discover which way round it is.

It also explains that the speed of light is constant in every frame of reference. If I am standing on the Earth, and you were zooming in a spaceship above at 100,000 mph, the light travelling relative to us would be at exactly the same speed. You travelling at such a fast speed would make no difference whatsever.

A consequence of this is that time is not constant and is not the same experience for all of us. It is relative to the observer. Using the spaceship analogy again, if I stayed on earth and you zoomed off at vast speeds approaching those of light, from my perspective time would appear to slow for you, your wristwatch might start running slower, and your movements would appear sluggish. However, you would not notice anything different at all. For you it would me MY watch running slower and MY movements becoming sluggsh.

General relativity is to do with gravity, and explains that it is a consequence of the warping of spacetime by objects of mass (ie planets and stars).

Don't know if any of that made sense, but I hope it helped.

Answer 4

I can't, but Bill Bryson does a pretty good job in his book "A Short History of Nearly Everything". He manages to explain an awful lot of complicated science in very simple layman's terms.

Answer 5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_general_relativity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity

It might be advisable to read the Special Relativity article beforehand.
Basically, all the phenomena in the universe are relative.
For example gravity is not a force but a result of space-time curvature.
Also e=mc^2 denotes a direct link between matter and energy.
Consider mass as sort of frozen energy and energy as matter on the fast lane.

Answer 6

you see according to einstein's theory of relativity, everything in this universe is relative. for example if i am travelling at 50 km/hr then another object travelling at 50 km/hr would appear stationary to me wheares to a person standing still it would appear to be moving at 50 km/hr. this principle can be applied for length, time etc......

Answer 7

tht energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared. i would recomend you look up the phoniex project and the philedephia exsperiment

Answer 8

lol, do your own homework!!!