Well done for sticking with the blog this week. I hope that it will have given you some opportunities to think about science in a different way than in lessons. This is the last post of the week and is something that is obviously unlikely to come up in an exam but is fun to consider nonetheless.
Relativity, as an idea, has been around since Galileo (see here for more about him) and is simply the observation that measurement of speed depends upon the position and motion of the person making the measurement.
So, along comes Einstein to try and solve the dilemma explained in the video above. Speed is relative to the observer’s position but the speed of light is always constant at about 300,000 km/s (186,000 miles per second). Either science’s understanding of motion or its understanding of light must be wrong. What Einstein did was to describe a Universe in which time and space can vary so that the speed of light can remain constant.
I think that is enough for now. There is a Part Two but that will keep until the Easter holidays. Good luck with the exams next week.
Questions…
- What equation links speed, distance and time?
- Which force accounts for your weight on Earth?
- What property of a light wave governs its colour?
Comments