The other day when I was browsing English online newspaper I stumbled on an interesting article in The Independent in its science section with similarly interesting headline: "Einstein's theory is proved – and it is bad news if you own a penthouse" . At first sight you probably say something like „Nothing special. His theory has been recognized for almost century, this doesn’t bring anything new.” Thinking this too, I opened the article with expectation of some dry facts and figures about astrophysics. To my surpise the article was fairly readeble and understandable (granted you have certain level of English skills in reading). Text was describing a scientific experiment with measurement of time and its implications.During the experiment scientist used atomic clock which enabled them to gauge the time with striking accuracy (able to keep time to within one second in about 3.7 billion years). These clocks were put on two places with different altitude ( above sea level) with difference of one foot.The result was as expected (for the scientists) but still very intriguing for me . The clock higher showed a slightly different time than the lower one, it was simply older.This had proved Einstein’s theory: the higher the altitude the „faster“ the time. The reason for this is so called gravitational pull which increases ,besides other things, also with lower altitude.This is also practical demonstration of so called „twin paradox“ – the thought experiment of theory of relativity in which one brother from identical twins pair sets on a journey in high-speed spaceship only to discover upon his return to the Earth that his sibling is older than he. This should be caused by the high speed of space rocket.Speed of time is therefore according to Einstein relative and depends on speed and the altitude.The latter is proved and even though there is also strong argumentation for the first one we will have to wait some time before we can read in The Independent another article with headline “ Einstein's theory is proved(again)- and it is bad news if you don’t own a car.Maybe above mentioned article wasn’t the first information about the existance of the proof of the theory of relativity but it was the first one I had read, at least as far as I can remember. It made me once again think a bit about the world around us , how it works, why it works this way and how well I and others – humanity can understand it. How many rules are out there which we won’t ever be able to understand with our „poor“ human brains? Not to mention finding them out. How special must someone be to come with concepts like theory of gravity and relativity?Take this relativity of time . Can you imagine how it might work as well as you can imagine gravity in action with falling apple?(let alone the concept of gravity where one thing draws other things because it is just „heavy“ ). I think I can, at least partly, imagine effects of relative time, however maybe I only think I can . I remember reading about „twin paradox“ as child in a book about physics with colourful pictures. I simply could not understand how was that possible and even considered it to be crazy theory which had nothing to do with reality („Those stupid scientists have obviously too much of free time which has negative effects on their brain and makes them go nuts“). Now as I am older (adult) I am able to understand better what is meant by different „speed of time“ though I do not expect my brain to develop more over time to better grasp even more complicated theories. Unfortunately, it might have already reached its peak.On the other hand my reasoning may be totally wrong. Maybe we have problems understanding and accepting these new rules of universe not because our lack of inteligence but just because they are new and our thinking about them now can be compared to the thinking of the people who believed that thunder is god‘s anger or the Earth is flat and is the center of the universe (how would medieval knight react if he saw a notebook and all the „miracles“ it can do ?). In fact most of the people do not know details about how these things like thunder, flight, electricity or computers work but they accept it as something absolutely natural.Who knows, maybe dozens of generations after me our descendants will have more advanced brains thanks to some trick of evolution or maybe not (contents of the current mainstream media indicates sort of devolution in this area :o) ). One way or another, it is almost inevitable that they will laugh at the fact we once called our today’s technology super high-tech and they will ask similar hyphotetical questions in which we will be in the role of an awestruck medieval knights. Also there is a reasonable chance they will regard phenomena and rules of universe which are today for us uncomprehensible as natural.Or maybe, and that isn’t so unbelievable image, there will be no future generations at all.(Sorry for possible mistakes)http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/einsteins-theory-is-proved-ndash-and-it-is-bad-news-if-you-own-a-penthouse-2088195.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativityTwin paradox
thanks for your comment Mich;) ,hm in theory Michelle, everything can be relative and therefore from a certain point of view you can say that nothing is 100 percent sure:D in any case it is very interesting to read about it:)
first of all: I didn't approve your two other comments coz, first one was copy-paste copy of my article and second was the same as this one WTF?:D anyway I have to switch off the comments approval option here:)
second: thanks for your positive comment
third: You are right, we can to a certain degree influence our reality around us, create our own world, percieve it as we want. However, I am still curious about the rules of universe and what is behind this all even though I know I will never find it out. It is just innate human curiosity and fascination by finding out these new amazing facts.
Comments
first of all: I didn't approve your two other comments coz, first one was copy-paste copy of my article and second was the same as this one WTF?:D anyway I have to switch off the comments approval option here:)
second: thanks for your positive comment
third: You are right, we can to a certain degree influence our reality around us, create our own world, percieve it as we want. However, I am still curious about the rules of universe and what is behind this all even though I know I will never find it out. It is just innate human curiosity and fascination by finding out these new amazing facts.