Mike Teacher
06-03-2003, 09:10 AM
Relativity: Damn $5 word. All it means is what may be one second or one mile to you may not be what one second/mile is for another person; it's Relative to the person.
Thought Experiment:
Ron is driving at 60mph; just crusing along. Now let's say Fez can Fly. Please, just trust me here. Fez is flying around and decides to fly next to Ron's car, right next to it; 60mph. Lets say Ron's driving a Van, and the side door is open. Now Fez flies thru the opening into the van. Does Fez still have to fly at 60 mph to keep up with your car, or does Fez stop flying and splat into the back windshield? Can he just hover to stay put, or keep flying to keep up? Luckily for Fez, he can stop whatever force he was using to fly and sit and rest his wings/rocket pack/whatever.
Relativity for this: Fez and Ron have Two different frames of reference; FofR. Inside Ron's van; to Ron, nothing inside is moving. It's right there; the steering wheel the seats, the old stash box under the false floor, they're right there, not moving [relative, see?] in Ron's FofR, the Van.
What about Fez; does he have a Frame-thingy?
Now if Fez is watching from the side of the road; Ron and his Van and its steering wheel are all cruising past at 60mph. But to RON, the wheel is still right in front of him, motionless. They have two frames of reference; RELATIVE to each other.
The problem has NOTHING to do with the wind! Seems people insist it's all about the wind Fez would have to deal with outside the car. Imagine this happened on the moon w/no air and they had spacesuits. No difference at all.
Q: If YOU were traveling in a car at 60mph, and you couldn't see or sense any vibration from the road, or hear the wind etc. Meaning you have NO information coming in about what may be happeneing outside the car. Can you tell if the Car you are in is in Motion, or Standing Dead Still? An elevator works too; once it starts moving and you get rid of that `bump' that means the elevator is starting to move [accelerating, actually]: if you could cut out all the noise and vibration, could you tell whether you were moving or not?
The answer is No.
The Van, Side of the Road, Space that Fez was flying in, elevator. All of these are called Inertial Frames of reference.
Inertial meaning moving at different speeds or directions.
FofR meaning the world around you. That car that is blacked out so you cant get any info about the outside? If you are inside that car and traveling at a constant speed [why constant? Forget it for now.]; no matter what that speed is, as measured from the outside, it means nothing to the car. Inside the car; the world is at a dead standstill. The car isn't moving. Exactly as if you were sitting in it parked. Ditto with the elevator. Once in constant motion, the speed outside is meaningless; inside the world of the elevator, the elevator isn't moving at all. Same as if it was sitting on the ground floor. Exactly.
Why? Because everything is RELATIVE to everything else. Your speed is relative to the speed of you going around the earth as it spins and relative to you traveling around the sun. There's a good one. The earth isn't moving, right? It's right here, right? Yes and no. To you and your computer the earth is motionless, but your spinning around the earths axis at around 700mph, and you're traveling at, if i remember right, 17 miles a SECOND as you and I and the Frame of Reference we call Earth sit and read.
Mike the Teacher
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Thought Experiment:
Ron is driving at 60mph; just crusing along. Now let's say Fez can Fly. Please, just trust me here. Fez is flying around and decides to fly next to Ron's car, right next to it; 60mph. Lets say Ron's driving a Van, and the side door is open. Now Fez flies thru the opening into the van. Does Fez still have to fly at 60 mph to keep up with your car, or does Fez stop flying and splat into the back windshield? Can he just hover to stay put, or keep flying to keep up? Luckily for Fez, he can stop whatever force he was using to fly and sit and rest his wings/rocket pack/whatever.
Relativity for this: Fez and Ron have Two different frames of reference; FofR. Inside Ron's van; to Ron, nothing inside is moving. It's right there; the steering wheel the seats, the old stash box under the false floor, they're right there, not moving [relative, see?] in Ron's FofR, the Van.
What about Fez; does he have a Frame-thingy?
Now if Fez is watching from the side of the road; Ron and his Van and its steering wheel are all cruising past at 60mph. But to RON, the wheel is still right in front of him, motionless. They have two frames of reference; RELATIVE to each other.
The problem has NOTHING to do with the wind! Seems people insist it's all about the wind Fez would have to deal with outside the car. Imagine this happened on the moon w/no air and they had spacesuits. No difference at all.
Q: If YOU were traveling in a car at 60mph, and you couldn't see or sense any vibration from the road, or hear the wind etc. Meaning you have NO information coming in about what may be happeneing outside the car. Can you tell if the Car you are in is in Motion, or Standing Dead Still? An elevator works too; once it starts moving and you get rid of that `bump' that means the elevator is starting to move [accelerating, actually]: if you could cut out all the noise and vibration, could you tell whether you were moving or not?
The answer is No.
The Van, Side of the Road, Space that Fez was flying in, elevator. All of these are called Inertial Frames of reference.
Inertial meaning moving at different speeds or directions.
FofR meaning the world around you. That car that is blacked out so you cant get any info about the outside? If you are inside that car and traveling at a constant speed [why constant? Forget it for now.]; no matter what that speed is, as measured from the outside, it means nothing to the car. Inside the car; the world is at a dead standstill. The car isn't moving. Exactly as if you were sitting in it parked. Ditto with the elevator. Once in constant motion, the speed outside is meaningless; inside the world of the elevator, the elevator isn't moving at all. Same as if it was sitting on the ground floor. Exactly.
Why? Because everything is RELATIVE to everything else. Your speed is relative to the speed of you going around the earth as it spins and relative to you traveling around the sun. There's a good one. The earth isn't moving, right? It's right here, right? Yes and no. To you and your computer the earth is motionless, but your spinning around the earths axis at around 700mph, and you're traveling at, if i remember right, 17 miles a SECOND as you and I and the Frame of Reference we call Earth sit and read.
Mike the Teacher
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