Steph Brunot: the theory of relativity

Einstein is considered the 20th century greatest scientist. He has given many contribution to many fields, but the theory that this paper focuses is on is the theory of relativity presented by Albert Einstein in 1905, and a fascinating time traveling theory. In general terms, the theory states that time is relative. In physics terms, the theory becomes a bit more complicated. There are three types of relativity:

1) Classical relativity

There is no object that is completely at rest or complete motion. This has to do mostly with the reference frame chosen by an individual. Even if you were to stand completely still, you would technically still be moving at a velocity of 40,320 km/h, which is the velocity of the earth.  If the earth were to come to a complete stop for 10 seconds, the human race would most likely go extinct due to the massive amount of carnage that would follow. Imagine, you are driving a car without a seatbelt and hit another car, you would without a doubt fly out of the car and hit the pavement, but the velocity of your short flight would the same as the velocity your car prior to the crash. 

2) Time dilation and space contraction

Einstein managed to find a way to slow down time. In order to better explain this, an example is needed. Imagine you were to have two mirrors in which a light beam was being reflected off both, and another set, of the same objects. Now one of the sets have begun to move near the speed of light, which is 299,792,458 m/s. The light beam of the moving set would actually travel a larger distance, but since the speed of light is constant, it would need a larger time to complete it, therefore making time, relative the other set that is at rest, slower. Although, Einstein observed that when objects moved faster their height would become contracted, therefore actually shortening the distance previously mentioned

Time has actually already slowed down in 2006 worldwide thanks to the three gorges dam built in china. It raised the sea level 175m above sea level which has the same effect of a figure skater that moves their hands away from their center in order to slow themselves down. The earth is actually moving 0.06 microseconds slower than it used to prior to the contraction of the dam.

Now to mention the theory stated before. Physicist compare space to a long sheet of paper. When a huge mass is place somewhere on the paper, all object dropped after will converge to that location. Such is the theory behind black holes; a star that has gotten so big, and it simply attracts everything that goes beyond its boundary, or event horizon as stated by Hawking. Now, let us assume that an object were to dropped inside of a black hole. It would be failing inside of it at a certain velocity that, conveniently, would be the 60 to 90 percent the speed of light. Inside of that black hole, our object would be traveling at a larger distance and therefore would take more time. Therefore that hypothesis states that black holes are actually capable of traveling to the future relative to our current concept of time. The next question in this problem, is how big the black hole actually needs to be. The mass of a black hole is directly proportional to its event horizon.

Sadly it’s only a hypothesis. Man will possibly be able of time travel but it will not be in the near future considering that we are still trying to populate other planets. It would most likely take billions and decades before we can even fathom the existence of black holes and its relationship to relativity.