I Am Not Einstein

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Recommended: The theory of relativity

“I think… I remember the whole, of what must have been the last day”, I exclaimed quietly to myself as the memories started to flood back to me. I was sitting at my maple wood desk, thinking and researching. That day in class we learned about the Theory of Relativity, but I didn’t quiet understand it. I mean, I did get it, but not to the extent that everyone else did. I got the basics… of one concept.
I remember the teacher exclaiming, “Einstein predicted that the length of and object can be measured to be shorter when it is moving than when it is at rest.” This was one of the concepts that confused me a lot, “ so, what exactly does that mean?” I felt like he just expected me to know what he meant, so when I asked this question he had to make it more confusing by writing a mathematical equation on the board.

L=L_0 √(1-v^2/c^2 )

L = Length of object as measured from the other frame of reference
L_0= Length of object measured in same frame of reference as the object v = Velocity of one frame of reference relative to the other

If that equation was to have explained anything, it did a horrible job. I spent the rest of that class trying to figure out what this meant and I’m 100% positive that I figured it out; if something goes by really fast it appears to be smaller than if it is standing still and that the frame of reference depends on if we see an object still or moving at that moment. Since it took me all class to just figure out that one concept I ended up missing the rest of the lecture on Special Relativity. So, as I was sitting at my desk, still smelling the faint scent of maple, I was procrastinating before finally telling myself to just do it. Just open that Textbook and catch up, I thought to myself over and over again before finally deciding to enter that world of confusion.
“The theory of relativity is the desire to express all natural phenomena by a set of simple equations; and [that] is right when [you object] to making the demand for simplicity the chief purpose of a scientific theory.” “What”, I uttered to myself while trying to make sense of what I had just read.

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