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Special Relativity
/ ĕ′ə /
- The theory of space and time developed by Albert Einstein, based on the postulates that all the laws of physics are equally valid in all reference frames moving at a constant speed relative to each other (that is, in all inertial frames ), and that the speed of light is observed to be the same in all reference frames. To compare measurements of length or time made in different inertial frames, their values must be regarded as components of vectors in a 4-dimensional space called Minkowski space-time . Different frames are related to each other mathematically by Lorentz transformations . Special Relativity predicts that all massless particles, such as photons, are always necessarily moving at the speed of light, while all particles with mass are always necessarily moving slower than the speed of light, and only particles with mass can be at rest. The theory also states that velocities are not simply additive. For example, if an object (such as a spacecraft) moving with velocity v 1 observes another faster object (such as a rocket fired from the spacecraft) moving ahead of it in the same direction with velocity v 2 , an observer at rest observes the faster object moving at velocity that is not just the sum of v 1 and v 2 , but at the slower speed v 1 + v 2 1 + v 1 v 2 c 2 .
- See also General Relativity
Example Sentences
In “Woman of the Hour,” she rewrites the script and asks her own questions, including a tricky one about special relativity and “What are girls for?”
Her hands cradled it as if handling Einstein’s original paper on special relativity.
If Einstein could use a Gedankenexperiment—an investigation completely worked out in his imagination—to figure out the theory of special relativity, then I could do the same to come up with a plan to save Fig.
The answer is given by Albert Einstein's famous equation E=mc2, first published in a 1905 paper that introduced his "theory of special relativity."
These fields allow particles to appear and disappear, all in accordance with both the strict dictates of Einstein’s special relativity and the probabilistic laws of the quantum world.
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