How to Think About Relativity

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    November 19, 2022 8:17 AM PST

    Illustration of the earth warping space-time, surrounded by small gears and galaxies.

     

    How to Think About Relativity

     

    The development of relativity is usually attributed to Albert Einstein, but he provided the capstone for a theoretical edifice that had been under construction since James Clerk Maxwell unified electricity and magnetism into a single theory of electromagnetism in the 1860s. Maxwell’s theory explained what light is — an oscillating wave in electromagnetic fields — and seemed to attach a special significance to the speed at which light travels. The idea of a field existing all by itself wasn’t completely intuitive to scientists at the time, and it was natural to wonder what was actually “waving” in a light wave.

     

    If you love physics and the theory of relativity, this article will bring you to a different level of questioning the whole order of relativity.