Breezy+Einstein's+Big+Idea

Einstein’s “Big Idea” was the Relativity Theory. This has many components to it, but two factors stay the same. The first factor is that the speed of light stays the same for all observers, and the second is that the laws of physics are the same in any inertial reference frame. Keeping these the same Einstein changed how we view momentum, energy, length, and time. Einstein mainly came up with this idea by looking at the speed of light. The speed of light is “//c//”. When someone is almost at the speed of light, but not quite we measure that with a decimal. Let’s say that an astronaut is going 79% of the speed of light. This means that c would equal .79! But this is not true for the motion of ordinary objects. If Allison and I were running cross country, and she came at me at a 8:35 pace and I was running a 8 minute pace, then I would have a relative speed of 35 more seconds then her. But if Allison was running a 4 minute pace and I was running a 10 minute pace; she would have a relative speed of 6 minutes for me. So speed’s relativity is due to not only my motion, but another object’s too. Momentum was originally described as p=mv. Which mv would then equal gamma, and gamma is always greater then one. In this equation, the object would gain more and more momentum when it gets closer to the speed of light, but this only works with a certain mass. Einstein also changed how we view energy. He came up with the equation E = mc^2. This means that energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared. This tells us that when mass disappears in nuclear fusion, it always comes back in a different form. Which we know from last year, that energy is neither created nor destroyed. And I already posted about length contraction and time dilation. So you should be up to speed on that. http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/theory/relativity.html