Judging from the experiment shown in the illustration, I'll assume it would take place at normal atmospheric pressures. Say, on Earth, in your conventional classroom?
When the box containing the vacuum is ruptured, the pressure gravity exerts on the air surrounding the setup would continue...
Ok, I think I've got it. The thought experiment I had in my head involved two beams of light pointing in opposing directions, with an observer moving parallel to them at a given fraction of c. What I failed to realize was that according to SR its not the speed of the beams themselves in...
Again, my dilemma is that the velocity addition formula alone accounts for the speed of light remaining constant. I just don't see a need for the other aspects of the theory.
I've been trying to read along with that book, that when my questions arose.
...wait, I still fail to see the need of imposing time dilation and contraction if the formula used to calculate velocities at near light speeds is different. That's the source of my dilemma. I'm going in circles. The only reason explained for things such as time dilation to occur is to in...
...well, thank you. I'll have to investigate this further, my own ignorance astounds me. It seems this sort of misunderstanding is common amongst those first studying this. Perhaps it's just laziness.
Thats my question. There really have been experiments done at a significant fraction of the speed of light showing this? If so, I apologize for my ignorance, but frankly, in my quest to wrap my head around Einstein's words, no one has ever directly cited any.
As I've understood it, Einstein developed SR in an attempt to explain why the speed of light would be observed as a constant law from any point of reference, but it seems more like he only asserts this and goes on. How does he actually explain it? Does he ever explain why light speed velocities...