- #36
Telos
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Brian Greene reprises this explanation of SR in "Fabric of the Cosmos." Before using Bart and Lisa Simpson as characters in an imaginary experiment, he says essentially what you said, Crosson, although with some distinctions.
He emphasizes that, because everything moves through space-time at a constant speed, the name for relativity is somewhat misleading. And that in fact Einstein originally wanted to call it "invariance theory." This may be something to interest the layman (although, in my case it has only confused me to the point of wanting to become a physicist just to understand everything... and considering I'm in my senior year of economics, it's not exactly productive to be considering a career change)!
Also, he says that a parked car has devoted all of its constant motion to motion through time. But, when it starts to move it has transferred some of that motion to space and now time will slow down for it, as it has taken some of its motion away from moving through time.
He emphasizes that, because everything moves through space-time at a constant speed, the name for relativity is somewhat misleading. And that in fact Einstein originally wanted to call it "invariance theory." This may be something to interest the layman (although, in my case it has only confused me to the point of wanting to become a physicist just to understand everything... and considering I'm in my senior year of economics, it's not exactly productive to be considering a career change)!
Also, he says that a parked car has devoted all of its constant motion to motion through time. But, when it starts to move it has transferred some of that motion to space and now time will slow down for it, as it has taken some of its motion away from moving through time.
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