A First Step Toward Understanding
Relativity Conceptually
RELATIVITY IN HALF AN HOUR
Theoretical
Physics for the Leisure Mind
by
Chongo in collaboration with José
Acquire
a deep understanding of relativity in a summary way, in only half and
hour. And, although it surely
contradicts the common widespread opinion that relativity cannot be understood
with common widespread conventional thinking, to the contrary, it can be very
easily understand by anyone who can read and who can grasp a simple geometric
principle: perpendicular. Although is commonly understood to be something very
complex. Relativity is, at its heart, a very simple idea, when described in the
context of a “flat,” two-dimensional world.
Now,
anyone who can read can take the first step toward understanding what is,
fundamentally, a very simple set of ideas.
Explore and grasp relativity, in an even easier way than Einstein did,
in a universe with one dimension fewer than our own, within the confines of
your own mind. Imagine, just as Einstein himself did, just what it
would be like to ride on a beam of light.
In this way, in the privacy of your own mind you can see just what
Einstein saw, with the same ease with which he saw it, and just as Mister
Einstein did, without having to
step out of your imagination for even a moment. No prerequisite education
whatsoever is required and, the ideas so simple, that, just like Mister
Einstein, one need not know hardly any math at all (in actual fact none) to
grasp its principles. This relativity
book contains not a single mathematical symbol, as the principles are so “concrete,”
none are ever needed. (Should the reader desire greater depth and
complexity, though still with no math, then see Conceptual Relativity,
which is a far more in-depth discussion of Einstein’s theory and what it
means.)
EXCERPT:
How do we explain physical reality? Where do we start, and with what do we
begin, in order to take even the first step toward an explanation? In explaining physical reality, do we really
have anything else, except it, with which to initiate that explanation? Is there ever anything else, except physical
reality? We might think there is more,
perhaps by believing that our thoughts, memories, feelings, or dreams exist,
somehow independently from physical reality.
In so believing, we ignore that we cannot even ‘imagine’ anything
independent of physical reality (though we might, quite mistakenly, believe
otherwise), any more than we can think, feel, or dream independently of it,
because physical reality includes even the motions of our very thoughts,
memories, feelings, and dreams, themselves, which are ALL also, just as
physical – every bit as much – as anything
in the universe.
“To even consider, legitimately, that our thoughts, memories,
feelings, or dreams are somehow nonphysical, one must first identify precisely
what it means for them, or for anything, to be so, and how, being nonphysical
in character, they nonetheless express themselves in the most overtly physical
ways – like speaking, that, so clearly being motion, makes all of our thoughts,
memories, feelings, and dreams no less physical than any overt human action is;
no less than ANY other kind of physical motion whatsoever in the universe is. Stating matters clearly, anything that we
might imagine being nonphysical affecting reality simply does not exist.
So, because physical reality is all that we really
have (since, as stated, anything else cannot ever be expressed, described, or
manifest in any other way except a physical one), we must choose physical
reality’s observation as the first step toward its explanation. If we do not choose observation as a first
step, then we must choose either not to explain physical reality, or choose
something 'else', though there seems to be nothing else that we can use that
isn't its observation, by which to do so.
If we choose the latter, that is, choose something ‘else’, besides
observation for explaining, we choose something that cannot, of course, ever be
observed at all, not even indirectly (though we’re free to ‘believe’
otherwise).
In choosing observation, we choose something that we
cannot really even imagine outside of the physical terms of the observations
(or any permutations thereof: allegory) that are an outcome of our life
experience or rearrangements and distortions of such experiences (as innate
interpretive responses to these observations).
By choosing observation, as the first step toward explaining physical
reality, we implicitly assume that physical reality is 'made' of what we
observe, even if what we observe consists (as stated) only of what we think, or
remember, or feel emotionally, or dream.
We further assume that physical reality, besides being made of all these
things we observe ‘within’ ourselves, is made also of all those things that we
observe outside of ourselves, through our sensory awareness.
“Thus, we begin, by assuming that physical reality
is made of all things observed, be they observed internally or externally,
directly (like seeing the print on the page that you are now reading) or
indirectly (like seeing the reflection of ourselves [or anything], looking into
a mirror). In this way, we can use
physical reality as a first step, so that it can explain itself, through our
embracing its observation, in the most rigorous way that we can. We will use physical reality, along with
that part of it that is our imagination, as precisely as our current
understanding allows, for describing our very observations themselves and the
relationships existing between these observations (in a predictable and
reproducible manner), which is what any meaningful explanation of physical
reality must do, for it to explain anything that is genuinely, materially real
(i.e. physically existing outside of
our imagination).
EXCERPT:
“Just as the
great two-dimensional physicists discovering his or her two-dimensional version
of the Theory of ‘Special’ Relativity could extend that theory and its
straight-line geometry, by using this singularly simple geometry as a ‘special’
case “curve” for a broader, more complex geometry, that of two-dimensional
‘general’ relativity, so can we three-dimensional creatures do the same thing;
which is exactly what the great three-dimensional physicist, Albert Einstein, did,
by extending the description of special relativity’s effects of uniform motion
(motion that does not change speed or direction) upon space (as opposed to a
surface) and time, to non-uniform motion (motion that does change speed,
direction, or both), and ‘equivalently’, to the effects of gravity, since the
effects of gravity are absolutely indistinguishable
from the effects of inertia. By imagining special relativity’s straight
lines as curved lines, we can create a conceptual description of space and time
together (space-time), and a way to imagine the effects of mass, as the force
of either inertia or gravity upon it.
In this way, we can logically derive the Theory of General Relativity in
terms of a concept (namely, bending), just as Albert Einstein did the same (but
describing the concepts more precisely using mathematics).”
© 2008 C. Tucker (Chongo)
All rights reserved.
Table
of Contents
Preface
Page 1
The First Fifteen Minutes
Relativity
and the ‘Tilting’ of a Stipulation Called “Space”, Across Time
Page 5
The Next Five Minutes
Acceleration,
Bending, and the ‘Equivalence’ of Gravity
Page 19
The Last Ten Minutes
The
Shape of the Universe: How Light Creates Space and Time
Page 23