How do I explain this theory to a child without getting myslef too hyped up about it?
I got as far as the univers expanding and time dilating.:svengo:
Anyone here with a simplifier?
Thanks!
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How do I explain this theory to a child without getting myslef too hyped up about it?
I got as far as the univers expanding and time dilating.:svengo:
Anyone here with a simplifier?
Thanks!
The imagination is important, but an imagination without knowledge is like a toilet without water. ~ C A CafoliniQuote:
Originally Posted by cacian
Trains. Then conformal diagrams.
Woud you mind explaining a bit more dev/null ?:pQuote:
Originally Posted by /dev/null
Trains is movement but diagrams are shapes.
Is it something shapes move?
Ouch!Quote:
Originally Posted by cafolini
Depending on how old the person is, introduce him/her to this:
According to a PBS presentation, it boils down to the idea that time and space aren't mutually exclusive. Ergo if you're moving in space, then time actually slows down. I'm grossly simplifying things, so here's a link to possible enlightenment:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics...-nutshell.html
Actually time does not dilate. But time is a variable. So, if there is a compression because the object is pushing through some density, you might want to interpret that time dilated. It's useless.Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
Thank you Charles the book looks interesting. Have you read it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles Darnay
Time is pointless in space right?Quote:
Originally Posted by My2cents
Thanks for the link!
Could this link with this question:Quote:
Originally Posted by cafolini
Is everything one sees real?
Yes. I really like it.Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
Quote:
Time is pointless in space right?
No, no it is definitely not.
The same way you'd explain your thoughts on biology, surely.Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
:lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis
"Who needs books? Ponder away, kid."
I guess I would try it my way if I did not understand it the other way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis
You cannot blame me if Darwin failed to make it clear to me.
If Darwin and everyone in this thread failed to make it clear to you, it's safe to say where the blame lies.Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
Seriously guys (Mutatis, Anton), why bother bringing that up here.
Of course I can. Who better to blame, really? Darwin made it quite clear for millions of people. If one person doesn't understand it, the fault is with that one person more than it is with Darwin.Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
I felt it relevant to remind people what kind of reactions they'd get if they actually decided to take the time to truly explain the theory of relativity to cacian.Quote:
Originally Posted by Volya
I somehow differ on the view that Darwin has clearly demonstrated his thoughts on this subject.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis
It is down to the master to lead by examples and demonstrates capabilities to those who wish to learn.
Unfortunately in this particular example the knowledgable master has failed the tasks to issue a clear pervoyance upon my will to understand and therefore the failures is with him and him alone for not having achieved knowledge to base.
A child learns from adult. I take it that would the same similaritie between a Darwin and a mere person.
Back to the topic:
How old is the child? How brilliant is the child? Are we talking about the special theory or the general? Does the child know basic Newtonian mechanics? If not, why bother with relativity just yet?
Hi Summer back to topic indeed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Summer M
The child between seven and eight.
I am talking any theory general or specific.
I am looking for an ouversture a simplified one to give a basic generals about this theory sets out be.
For example something like this
I will explain to a child that I want to reach number 8 using numerals and so will ask what mathematicals rethorics is one to use to reach that number.
The child should conclude that one needs to use 'adding' to do so.
I will leave the multiply and division for later on.
So I am after logical steps to give the child an image like the number 8 is an image.
Are you home schooling your child?
No this came up in a conversation with some children and so I could not explain it because I do not understand myself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
Forget about the general theory, as it is way too difficult. I'd say forget about the special, too, but if you insist, I'd say look at Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe, which explains the rudiments quite well. But really, at eight years old there is plenty to learn before relativity.
I sometimes wonder how to explain it to myself, but here is something to go on and what I would use as a reference:Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity
It might be an interesting challenge to see how one would actually say this to a child.
Einstein didn't win the Nobel for the theory of relativity. And when it came to that, there was very little that was his in that stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
For the rest, he was as retarded as his professors said he was. For the special as well as the general.
Explain to him the general outline of the thought process that Einstein had.
Start talking about light. Ask him if he ever wondered if when he switched on the lights, the light was inmediatly in all the room or it traveled too fast to tell. If he never thought of that explain him that light actually travels (you figure it out how, remember the example of the sun, etc). Highlight the point that - therefore- it has a certain speed.
Now, long time ago people aknowledged this, and for many centuries scientist have been trying it to calculate or messure the speed somehow. Astronomers came up with a way to messure it with some aproximation.
Now explain to him a little bit what happens with velocities. It's intuitive actually: Imagine that you get in a train. Now you start running in the hallway in the same direction than the train does. You run at 10km/h. The train moves at 20km/h. Then you are moving 30km/h respect to the ground. Conclusion:Velocities add up.
Now what is to expect is that in the same situation, but standing still in the hallway, if you switch on a flashlight pointing again at the same direction than the train, the beam of light will move at c (c= the speed of light) PLUS 20km/h respect to the ground.
In 1887 an experiment took place in the USA. It involves light and its speed. The results of the experiment contradicted the principle of addition of velocities, because they meassured the same speed of light respect to the ground for a beam that came from a source standing still and from a beam that came from a source in motion. (This is a lie, it's all simplified and adapted).
So at first scientist thought the experiment was a failure. But Einstein asked himself: What if the experiment was correct? What would it mean? Why didn't the speed of light added up with the speed of it's source?
"Mmmhh my best guess -he said to himself- is that, maybe, there is a universal limit to how fast something can travel, like a speed limit, and it happens to be the speed of light, and that explains why the velocities didn't add up in the experiment"
Now, why would there be a universal speed limit?: "I don't know! For some obscure underlying reason. But lets suspend this questioning, because I can't keep too many lines of thought at the same time. Let's pretend my guess is right and figure out what consecuenses it would have. Maybe I can deal with that later"
(To be continued...)
At this point in my life, the subject of Einstein bores me to dead. There were days in my youth when I got entangled with it and I figure him out one by one. Have fun.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anymodal
I don't think I will ever get bored of relativity. And I already understand it quite well by the way :yesnod:. I stoped the explanation because I just got lazy of thinking how to explain it to an 8 year old.. but then I'll continue :D
Well, if you were going to explain it to someone, whether 7 or 70, you would probably have to start out by explaining that physical laws are supposedly independent of the velocity of any particular frame of reference, otherwise they wouldn't be physical laws. That goes back to Galileo.
Then you would have to say that a physical law related to the velocity of light was discovered, namely, that nothing can go faster than it. That goes back to the Michelson-Morley experiment that failed to find the speed of the ether.
Since the speed of light as a maximum speed is a physical law, it must be independent of the velocity of any particular frame of reference. So every frame of reference, no matter whether it is rushing toward the light source or rushing away from the light source, will have to come up with the same measure for the velocity of the light source.
Check out "Mr Tompkins in Paperback" by George Gamow. I read it when I was about 10 and found it very inspirational.
Simon Singh's "Big Bang" has some very good explanations and diagrams - it's really aimed at adults, but might inspire you to some good explanations.
I second Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe.
Careful of Wikipedia - it gets hard very quickly! Encyclopedia Britannica is more straightforward.
Indeed. Thnak you YesNo it is all an adult world out there.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Einstein retarded? Now that is a first for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by cafolini
Since when?:p
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anymodal
Please do. I have to admit I kept up reading up to a point and I felt a headache coming on.
I wondered about someone running on a train that is already running.
Is that a possibility to run that fast on a train that is already very fast?
One could use speed rather then velocity because velo-city is composed of two words velo=bike and city= city. It can be misleading for a French speaker like me. I can't help but stop the velo in there.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
It is almost half french and english this word.
The other thing what about buyancy interms of speed? Is there anything in there about in relativity?
Then you would have to say that a physical law related to the velocity ofOuch that is too much information for me haha. :pQuote:
light was discovered, namely, that nothing can go faster than it. That goes back to the Michelson-Morley experiment that failed to find the speed of the ether.
Since the speed of light as a maximum speed is a physical law, it must be independent of the velocity of any particular frame of reference. So every frame of reference, no matter whether it is rushing toward the light source or rushing away from the light source, will have to come up with the same measure for the velocity of the light source.
How about a simple drawing just to settle a picture in one's mind haha.
In English, I've learned that "velocity" means speed with a direction. The main reason I use it is to make me look as if I know what I'm talking about. If I wrote, "speed", some reader would think, "Oh, the dummy doesn't know the correct term is 'velocity'". For the purposes of this thread, however, I suspect speed is just as good.Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
What do you use in French to distinguish these ideas?
The speeds of these frames of reference have to be so smooth that any people in them doing science would not feel that they are moving at all. So there wouldn't be any buoyancy or bumpiness.
I find it strange also, but I think the core of the strangeness has to do with finding a law of physics related to the maximum speed something can go.Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
In all these frames of reference, their relative speeds are supposed to be irrelevant in the verifications of the laws of physics done by someone in that frame of reference, but here is a law saying that there is a maximum possible speed. Here is a law about speed itself. Since it is a law of physics, I can verify it and I should come up with the same value no matter if I am moving toward the light source or away from the light source from the relative perspective of someone in a different frame of reference.
Of course, I don't think I'm moving at all in my own frame of reference. It is the other guy watching me who's moving and, oddly, getting the same value for the speed of light that I did.
I think with an 8 year old kid you need to follow Gamow and try and imagine that relativity applies to the everyday, practical world the kid knows about. Imagine a particle of light as a spacehopper*. Ask the kid what it would be like to jump on that particle. Then tell him the spacehopper will be moving at 'the speed of light', so how could he jump on? If says he would run and catch it, tell him it will always be moving at the same speed away from him however fast he runs!
* Do 8 year old kids know what spacehoppers are these days?
Hey mal4mac yes eight year olds do know what a space hooper is.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
Thank you for the post. I explained what you have just said but there is one one question they asked:
what is making the spacehopper run so fast and will it ever stop because it should eventually.
In other word the space hopper will eventually slow down to a stop right? :p
No! The speed of light is a constant. We don't know what is making it a constant, it's just a universal law of nature that we must accept (like bedtime rules...)Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
And we must accept it because it agrees with all the theories of clever physics dudes like Einstein. Thousands of experiments have either shown or assumed that the speed of light is a constant, and none of these experiments have been shown to be wrong. It's as certain as a spacehopper bouncing...
A photon might be absorbed by an atom in your retina, but whenever there's a photon around it's scurrying off at a constant speed. A light photon does not "slow down" upon entering a medium. The apparent decrease in speed in the atmosphere is because it "bounces" between particles. It's still going at the "universal constant" speed c.
(Einstein's special theory of relativity says that any particle with zero mass must always appear to move at the speed of light in any frame of reference.)
Your thread, cacian, has got me reading Richard Wolfson's Simply Einstein. He tries to explain relativity to anyone. He probably assumes his audience is older than 7, however.
One thing I would add to my original description, based on Wolfson's text, is to explain why people prior to Galileo did not feel the need for a principle of relativity. They experienced in their daily lives only one frame of reference, the earth, which was not moving while the sun, moon and constellations of stars were moving in a circular pattern around this frame of reference.
A relativity principle requires one to have at least two frames of reference.
False. Galileo's was relativity. Newton clearly stated that it is impossible to establish velocity 0. Galileo had as many frames of reference as he wished.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Regarding acceleration, a very important Einstenian retardation, two spaceships traveling together, nearby, can consult each other to see if the acceleration read is external or internal.
Thank you YesNo.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
So one requires to have at least two but why in the grandest scheme of things?
In other words in what way does a frame of reference help me advance?
I think we are in agreement.Quote:
Originally Posted by cafolini
The single frame of reference applies to the science done before Galileo's time. With Galileo one gets at least a second frame of reference, either the sun or Jupiter with its moons. Once you have two frames of reference that number would expand to as many as one wished to have.
The main credit for the idea of relativity belongs to Galileo, as I see it. Einstein did little more than affirm it for electromagnetic waves.
Although I think I read somewhere that there could be "infinitely" many frames of reference, I think that is an exaggeration. There are not even infinitely many subatomic particles in the universe nor with quantized time and space, infinitely many "points" of space-time.
The way Wolfson describes the relativity of a frame of reference is to consider the motion behavior of playing tennis or the electromagnetic behavior of cooking a meal in a microwave oven.Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
Would we expect to play tennis differently on a planet in a galaxy traveling very fast away from us? If we were on that planet, would we expect to heat up a meal differently? The principle of relativity claims that we wouldn't have to do anything differently. The laws of physics, both the motion laws as well as the electromagnetic laws, are the same in that planet's frame of reference as our own.
What about a ship? In fact, Galileo used a ship to explain his theory of relativity. And they had ships before Galileo! So you, or Wolfson, need to explain why people didn't think of this before Galileo. I can't see that Galileo had more "need" to explain this than other people. Given the Spanish Inquisition perhaps more of a need not to :angel:Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physic...ww/node47.html
I think the validity of infinity resides in division by two and is inescapable. There cannot occur an object without some measure of inside or, in the macro, some measure of beyond. by inference, or what has been named "weak proof." I don't see it as weak. But, of course, you can't get a baby to have a natural vocation for imaginary Cheerios, except if it is a convenient way of gaining the actual, occurring, Cheerios in three dimensions.
In the large scheme of things we could find as little solution as in the microscopic. This will always trigger unending and useless speculation as to where God is hiding, is, exists, or occurs.
But we must accept that as scientists we only can be annoyed at the impossibility of postulating occurrence other than as being and existence in the imagination. But because of these vicious, circular arguments I am exposing, where the existence or being of God couldn't possibly help science, beyond the mental kind, why should but a psychologist elebarote on it. The rest of the people is subjected to faith as the only solution and the psychologist as a volunteer at the mental stage. Don't forget to have some fun and firm faith in love and hope.