Welcome To...

The RELATIVITY Section

of the Tripartite Website

Introduction

    In 1905, Albert Einstein submitted three scientific papers to the German periodical Annelan Physick. All three proved to advance markedly different aspects of physics although one of them, entitled 'On The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies', was to resolve a most fundamental quandary concerning the nature of physical reality. By accepting the validity of certain experimental results, he found the only logical path available to resolve an apparent inconsistency. From this paper would emerge the theory of special relativity, although not yet formulated in that explicit phrase. It dealt with the uniform motion of bodies over space and time.

Ten years later, he advanced his theory of general relativity, which could account for both uniform and accelerated motion, particularly that due to the force of gravity. For many years, it provided the most promising basis for incorporating all laws of nature into one consistent model. To understand it fully probably requires more mathematical (and conceptual) ability than this writer possesses. But the special theory of relativity should prove more amenable to such comprehension, without too much mathematical knowledge. This section of the Website is thus devoted to my attempts to write out the strands of ideas that led to the conclusions Einstein arrived at in 1905, at least, and by this means try to understand those conclusions. Such ideas go back a long way of course and some of these will have to be described more superficially than, hopefully, the later ones. But verbal concepts and descriptions can never be as succinct and economical (ie elegant) as can mathematical and physical equations when distilling such truths. Indeed, when writing out the ideas that I've read about and struggled with, I find I generally go on much too long - which is another way of saying I probably don't yet really understand what I'm seeking to explain (to myself!) Nevertheless, this is my attempt..

On The Background To The Problems Addressed By Einstein...'

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