On November 15, 2003 Professor George Gollin presented "It's So Weird, It's So Simple, and You'll Derive It For Yourself, Entirely From Scratch, Right There In Your Seat: Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity."
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| This is a well established experimental
fact: the speed of light (in vacuum) is constant. Any measurement will always
show that a light beam travels 299,792,458 meters/second (this is pretty
close to a billion feet per second, or one foot per nanosecond). This is
true even if the source of light is moving at high speed towards (or away
from) the observers making the measurements: light beams do not behave like
snowballs thrown from cars! It may seem like a small thing, but this constancy
of the speed of light is the key to the bizarre behavior of space and time
when we allow our world to admit objects moving close to the speed of light. Starting with the surprising behavior of light beams, we will derive (in a rigorous fashion!) the fact that moving clocks tick slowly and that moving objects become shorter. Does it seem too ridiculous to be true? Well, yes, it does, but even so it really is the way the world works. Take a look at "Special relativity in 14 Easy Lessons" for more information. |
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