by makc » Fri Jan 13, 2006 1:10 pm
you came to relativity from wrong end. rather than asking numerous high-level questions, why wouldn't you 1st take a look at WHAT have changed since Newton?
very basic thing is relativity of simultaneity: same things happen at the same time, or not, depending on your relative motion to these things. This is simple, direct consequence of 1) our definition of "time", and 2) lightspeed invariance postulate, you don't even need formulas to see that.
Once you got that, twins "paradox", for example, stops being paradoxical, and you have no problems understanding what does "curved space" means.
(long time ago I had these discussions somewher, and I even was going to make flash presentation on that, but I didn't... this year I've started a personal page, which is going to be something BIG in flash, and I might include it there)
you came to relativity from wrong end. rather than asking numerous high-level questions, why wouldn't you 1st take a look at WHAT have changed since Newton?
very basic thing is relativity of simultaneity: same things happen at the same time, or not, depending on your relative motion to these things. This is simple, direct consequence of 1) our definition of "time", and 2) lightspeed invariance postulate, you don't even need formulas to see that.
Once you got that, twins "paradox", for example, stops being paradoxical, and you have no problems understanding what does "curved space" means.
[size=75](long time ago I had these discussions somewher, and I even was going to make flash presentation on that, but I didn't... this year I've started a personal page, which is going to be something BIG in flash, and I might include it there)[/size]