Almost two decades later, Albert Einstein came of age with a unique explanation for why light is always measured to be the same speed. Distance and time must be different for observers moving at different speeds.
I'm traveling past you in a train at 100,000 mph so you observe my clock to be running slower than yours.
Crazy, but which is correct? Both, according to Einstein and modern science. Time is relative.
We've measured it by watching unstable particles near light speed - they live longer if they move faster. But the particle still thinks her watch is ticking normally. It's only the 'slow' observer that measures the time increase.
Distance too is measured to be shorter and objects closer from either viewpoint. Space-Time. They are both relative to the observer and connected to each other. Simultaneous events also become relative to the observer.
Truly relative. Both are true observations from their frames of reference. This has nothing to do with moral relativity or causality. The bullet won't exit the barrel before the gun is fired. And it's still wrong to gas people. Unless...
Thanks to a couple of mechanical engineers freshman year at Grove City, I have seen flying blue and yellow flames. But if we accelerate a proton from that gas to near the speed of light, it acts as if it has more mass (from our perspective) and it smashes harder into targets. It also turns out that you're more massive if you have a fever since temperature is average kinetic energy of molecules.
iFail Video Link
Ignore the freak at the end
Ignore the freak at the end
Only tiny particles have to worry much about this since humans will never travel fast enough to experience the effects. Except we already are - with respect to many high speed particles traveling past and through us right now - the particle perspective.
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