obligatory bi-monthly plug drugs rambling about physics thread: Einstein's Relativity in Layman's Terms

[Plug Drugs]

If all the matter in the universe only has a location relative to other matter, then what does this say about space and time? Measurements such as velocity and distance would only be relative.

It is here where the old Einsteinian thought experiment involving an observer in free fall came to its conclusion. and implications were made regarding the speed of light being a constant:

The speed of light is the same for all observers; if a train moving 20 mph is emitting light out of the front headlight, how fast is the light moving? Intuitively, we would assume the speed of the light to be traveling at the speed of light + 20 miles per hour - but this can not be the case, as light can not travel faster than other light.

So what would this imply about the speed of the train? The counter-intuitive explanation is that the train shrinks in the direction it is traveling.
But what about a train at a state of rest? The mere fact that it has mass (and therefore occupies Euclidean dimensions of length, height, and width) yet can still emit light could mean only one thing: the presence of mass warps space-time - and this is how the phenomenon of gravity occurs; due to an inherent warping in the grid of space-time caused by the presence of mass.

[Cody]

Ponder this:

A .22 caliber slug sot into the temple at 1200 fps will bounce how many times on the inside of the skull.

Plz test the results you come up with on tinychat