- #1
noscience123
- 8
- 0
I'm an adult in the finance industry with no science background, and I'd like some help understanding relativity. I'm reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Einstein, and while I know it's not the point of the book, I can't get my head around the passages concerning relativity and it's really bugging me. I've researched on the web and all of the sites give the same few analogies, which I understand, but it's still not coming together for me. I'm hoping if I ask a pointed question or two that someone might be able to help me clear up my misconceptions.
So I understand the lightning strikes the front and back of the train metaphor. The lightning truly looks simultaneous to the man on the platform, but to the man on the train it looks like the lightning hits the front of the train first. But then they talk about the clock on the train moving slower than the clock on the platform and I get lost. So here's a hypothetical - let's say the man on the platform and the man on the train have walkie-talkies. The man on the platform reads off each second as it passes on the platform clock. For the man on the train, does it sound like the man on the platform is counting at the right pace? (i.e. truly a second passes between each number) and does the pace of the seconds he hears from the platform man match the second hand on the clock he sees inside the train?
Any help answering - or if I am on the wrong track (no pun intended), suggesting another way to look at it altogether - would be greatly appreciated.
So I understand the lightning strikes the front and back of the train metaphor. The lightning truly looks simultaneous to the man on the platform, but to the man on the train it looks like the lightning hits the front of the train first. But then they talk about the clock on the train moving slower than the clock on the platform and I get lost. So here's a hypothetical - let's say the man on the platform and the man on the train have walkie-talkies. The man on the platform reads off each second as it passes on the platform clock. For the man on the train, does it sound like the man on the platform is counting at the right pace? (i.e. truly a second passes between each number) and does the pace of the seconds he hears from the platform man match the second hand on the clock he sees inside the train?
Any help answering - or if I am on the wrong track (no pun intended), suggesting another way to look at it altogether - would be greatly appreciated.