I don't get the Theory of Relativity

[Yayfordoritos]

How did it become so famous when it's so hard to understand?

 

[Ivan92]

I know huh?!

 

[micromass]

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

If you think relativity is hard, you don't really understand quantum theory.

Why does everyone always pick on relativity theory?

 

[uperkurk]

I think this might help you. Although I get confused between general and special relativity.

 

[Jack21222]

How did it become so famous when it's so hard to understand?

Because it's correct (at least more than Newtonian gravity and Galilean relativity). Maybe one day, something will come along more correct and harder to understand (some kind of Grand Unified Theory), but for now, Einstein's Relativity is the best way we have.

 

[256bits]

Some would think it the theory to be infamous.

 

[FreeMitya]

Speaking as a layman, I think it's simply the way one thinks. I'm sure many people are better suited to study relativity than QM and vice versa. For example, I've been much more successful at grasping relativity than thermodynamics, but many people probably experience the reverse. If you're worried that you're less smart than anybody else for having trouble with relativity, don't be; we all have our niches.

 

[uperkurk]

If you're worried that you're less smart than anybody else for having trouble with relativity, don't be; we all have our niches.

I'm one of those people who wants to be smart but never will be lol. I come here to read stuff I don't understand, even though I don't understand 99% of physics I still find it interesting :)

 

[zoobyshoe]

How did it become so famous when it's so hard to understand?

It actually became famous for being so hard to understand. The saying used to be that there were only twelve people in the world outside of Einstein who understood it. To which Arthur Eddington asked, "Who are the other eleven?" (Eddington was the main promoter of the theory. He called everyone's attention to it.)

 

[wuliheron]

According to the National Science Foundation one in five Americans still believes the sun revolves around the earth. These are not the sharpest pencils in the box, but inventions like the atom bomb tend to get their attention.

 

[Vorde]

According to the National Science Foundation one in five Americans still believes the sun revolves around the earth. These are not the sharpest pencils in the box, but inventions like the atom bomb tend to get their attention.

I can't believe that. We're bad, but not that bad...

 

[ImaLooser]

I can't believe that. We're bad, but not that bad...

Oh? Most people think that the summer is hotter because the Earth is closer to the Sun then. About half can't find the USA on a map of the world. About 15% think that the Gulf oil spill was the result of an environmentalist plot. Etc. Etc. Once one grasps these basic facts, politics makes a lot more sense.

Well, at least Palin didn't become Prez US.

 

[Vorde]

It's true. Sometimes I wish only the intelligent could vote, then I realize what I'm saying and stop.

 

[Yayfordoritos]

According to the National Science Foundation one in five Americans still believes the sun revolves around the earth. These are not the sharpest pencils in the box, but inventions like the atom bomb tend to get their attention.

Mainly the south?

 

[russ_watters]

Why does everyone always pick on relativity theory?

I've often wondered that. My guess is that it is because few people learn it in high school and high school physics is as far as most people get. So if/when they encounter Relativity 5 or 15 years later, they don't take it seriously because they didn't learn it from The Foremost Authority on the subject that they have ever met.

 

[wuliheron]

Mainly the south?

I don't know, but it seems reasonable to me to assume the more impoverished the area and the greater the classism the lower the scores.

 

[Yayfordoritos]

I don't know, but it seems reasonable to me to assume the more impoverished the area and the greater the classism the lower the scores.

That's true! I moved around a lot when I was a kid and a couple times we had to live in the poorer areas and I ended up excelling academic wise in those areas, but when we moved to a more affluent area, I had to struggle to keep up just cause they were so much more advanced. I remember Oprah did a show on kids who did extremely well academically in the impoverished schools and then went to College and were struggling just to pass.

 

[ImaLooser]

It's true. Sometimes I wish only the intelligent could vote, then I realize what I'm saying and stop.

The advantage of universal sufferage is that it gives the public the illusion that their voice is important. This gives the society stability.

I remember some guy on TV giving George Carlin a hard time when George said that the voters didn't "own" the country. "George, how can you say that the voters don't own the country?" Good grief.

 

[Char. Limit]

How did it become so famous when it's so hard to understand?

Simple. It works.

 

[collinsmark]

I've always liked Leonard Susskind's introduction to this topic. Listen to the first 5 minutes of this lecture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Eeuqh9QfNI
The lecture in the link isn't about relativity specifically, but it does bring home the point.

 

[Jorriss]

Mostly because of E=mc^2?

 

[HeLiXe]

It actually became famous for being so hard to understand. The saying used to be that there were only twelve people in the world outside of Einstein who understood it. To which Arthur Eddington asked, "Who are the other eleven?" (Eddington was the main promoter of the theory. He called everyone's attention to it.)

I hope this is not straying from the topic, but what class is general relativity usually taught in? I've had special relativity in modern physics and I have to agree it was very special at first...my brain was total mush because I kept missing the point of one important sentence.

 

[PhizKid]

General and Special Relativity are usually courses in their own

 

[HeLiXe]

I've never heard of that, but I digress. I will ask the question in the academics section so as to not take this thread off topic. Thanks for your answer PhizKid

 

[I like Serena]

It's true. Sometimes I wish only the intelligent could vote, then I realize what I'm saying and stop.

Over the years I've learned that knowing or understanding the theory of relativity isn't really all that important.
People who do not grasp it or its relevance, are usually much smarter than they get credit for.

 

[wuliheron]

The advantage of universal sufferage is that it gives the public the illusion that their voice is important. This gives the society stability.

I remember some guy on TV giving George Carlin a hard time when George said that the voters didn't "own" the country. "George, how can you say that the voters don't own the country?" Good grief.

According to the definition of capitalism voters don't necessarily own the country, they merely have a say in how things are run. When voters do own the country it is called "socialism". It was an American railroad and banking baron, Jay Gould, who said he could pay half the working class to kill the other half. He could have been a felon with no voting rights, but he had enough money to lobby congress, fund elections, and plaster political commercials everywhere. There is no doubt such people own the country and their influence is beyond that of the ordinary voting citizen. Money talks, size does matter, and anyone suggesting otherwise is living in an ideological fantasy.

 

[Kholdstare]

Whatever goes against the common intuition of general public ... and is also proven to be correct ... becomes famous.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Whatever goes against the common intuition of general public ... and is also proven to be correct ... becomes famous.

I've never heard this. What's the proof you speak of?

 

[nitsuj]

lol did you miss the context zoobyshoe?How about the Earth is round, sun is at the centre of the solar system,

nowadays - slit experiment, and pretty much all else QM.

These become "famous" generally because they "goes against the common intuition of general public ... and is also proven to be correct[.]"

 

[nitsuj]

Over the years I've learned that knowing or understanding the theory of relativity isn't really all that important.

oh my land!

Of course it's important!

How else would someone know/understand relativity?

 

[wild999711]

I hope this is not straying from the topic, but what class is general relativity usually taught in? I've had special relativity in modern physics and I have to agree it was very special at first...my brain was total mush because I kept missing the point of one important sentence.

Normally there aren't classes on it till Grad school, and yeah special relativity is much easier with 4 vectors than the methods presented in modern physics classes.

 

[harrylin]

Why does everyone always pick on relativity theory?

Good point - I was going to answer that it may be due to the air of "magic" that is given to relativity, but the same is true for QM... perhaps it is because nobody really understands QM?

 

[Kholdstare]

Good point - I was going to answer that it may be due to the air of "magic" that is given to relativity, but the same is true for QM... perhaps it is because nobody really understands QM?

QM and G(S)R are not understandable concepts to begin with. The way we understand things cannot be applied to understand them. They were discovered as some rules, and they will stay that way.

 

[harrylin]

QM and G(S)R are not understandable concepts to begin with. The way we understand things cannot be applied to understand them. They were discovered as some rules, and they will stay that way.

Then why do you think is SR/GR more popular as claimed to be "not understandable" than QM? Once more: I propose that in particular SR is generally more frustrating as many people cannot make sense of it despite its simple math. And being confronted with explanations by people who have no problem with it (despite your contrary claim) may increase that frustration.

 

[Kholdstare]

Then why do you think is SR/GR more popular as claimed to be "not understandable" than QM? Once more: I propose that in particular SR is generally more frustrating as many people cannot make sense of it despite its simple math. And being confronted with explanations by people who have no problem with it (despite your contrary claim) may increase that frustration.

Because that's pop-sci culture and over-sensationalized. Think of an example. In a hypothetical case if I push a button in a country an explosion occurs in other country. Now with further investigation it was seen that there's nothing else to be found about the phenomena. There's no connection, no cause-effect relationship, just nothing. Now, how will you explain them or understand them? You try to imagine similar situations and correlate them with the wired phenomena. It does not guarantee they are actually what is happening. Gives a sense of satisfaction, but never assures anyone. What happens actually? Honestly nobody knows.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Then why do you think is SR/GR more popular as claimed to be "not understandable" than QM? Once more: I propose that in particular SR is generally more frustrating as many people cannot make sense of it despite its simple math. And being confronted with explanations by people who have no problem with it (despite your contrary claim) may increase that frustration.

I disagree. SR is hard to believe, not hard to understand. The speed of light is constant.

 

[jgens]

QM and G(S)R are not understandable concepts to begin with. The way we understand things cannot be applied to understand them. They were discovered as some rules, and they will stay that way.

I disagree with this, especially concerning SR. If we taught Euclidean geometry the same way we teach SR, by focusing on coordinate dependent quantities rather than invariant quantities, then the subject would be equally as confusing; in fact, there are even versions of the twin paradox, length contraction, time dilation, etc. in Euclidean geometry. The geometry of spacetime assumed in SR is not all that far off of the Euclidean geometry assumed in Newtonian mechanics. Sure there are a few pieces of our intuition that have to be fixed, but it's really not as weird as people make it out to be.

 

[Vorde]

I agree with the recent posts and not the comment saying QM/GR/SR is inherently unbelievable and impossible to understand.

SR makes perfect rational sense once you accept a postulate which seems contrary to everyday experience - that's the initial trouble, after that point everything makes sense.

Likewise with GR once you accept some of the tenets which seem to be against common sense then the whole thing beings to make sense.

QM is the same, it's just that the rule you have to accept which goes against common sense - the quantitization of nature - is further from our everyday experience than anything else.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

SR makes perfect rational sense once you accept a postulate which seems contrary to everyday experience.

That's precisely what I meant by 'hard to believe.'

 

[harrylin]

I disagree. SR is hard to believe, not hard to understand. The speed of light is constant.

For me SR is both understandable (although it took me a while, I have to admit - I really had to dig in the literature!) and as a result I now find it also easy to believe; I did find a way to make (common) sense of it.
[Edit: Note that the two postulates (the original ones*, not those of textbooks) are both on purpose common-sense postulates - the trouble was in understanding how they can both be true.]

In contrast, QM (especially combined with Bell's theorem) results in a Big Mystery that remains a source of heavy debate; there seems to be no interpretation possible that matches common sense (at least my personal common sense, and that of many others). My purpose of joining PF was that hopefully one of the discussions here will one day provide a possible answer that makes sense to me.

*http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/

 

[Vorde]

In contrast, QM (especially combined with Bell's theorem) results in a Big Mystery that remains a source of heavy debate; there seems to be no interpretation possible that matches common sense (at least my personal common sense, and that of many others). My purpose of joining PF was that hopefully one of the discussions here will one day provide a possible answer that makes sense to me.

I'd say the reason QM is so confusing is that there is no way to reconcile it with common sense.