200
PHVSICS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE
youth Einstein realized that no one had ever seen a light wave that was
totally stationary, that is, like a frozen wave. Hence Newton's theory
did not make sense.
Finally, as a college student in Zurich studying Maxwell's theory,
Einstein found the answer. He discovered something that even Maxwell
did not know: that the speed of light was a constant, no matter how fast
you moved. If you raced toward or away from a light beam, it still traveled at the same velocity, but this trait violates common sense. Einstein
had found the answer to his childhood question: you can never race
alongside a light beam, since it always moves away from you at a constant speed, no matter how fast you move.
But Newtonian mechanics was a tightly constrained system: like
pulling on a loose thread, the entire theory could unravel if you made
the smallest change in its assumptions. In Newton's theory the passage
of time was uniform throughout the universe. One second on the Earth
was identical to one second on Venus or Mars. Similarly, meter sticks
placed on the Earth had the same length as meter sticks on Pluto. But
if the speed of light was always constant no matter how fast you moved,
there would need to be a major shakeup in our understanding of space
and time. Profound distortions of space and time would have to occur
to preserve the constancy of the speed of light.
According to Einstein, if you were in a speeding rocket ship, the
passage of time inside that rocket would have to slow down with respect to someone on Earth. Time beats at different rates, depending on
how fast you move. Furthermore, the space within that rocket ship
would get compressed, so that meter sticks could change in length, depending on your speed. And the mass of the rocket would increase as
well. If we were to peer into the rocket with our telescopes, we would
see clocks inside the rocket running slowly, people moving in slow
motion, and the people would appear flattened.
In fact, if the rocket were traveling at the speed of light, time would
apparently stop inside the rocket, the rocket would be compressed to
nothing, and the mass of the rocket would be infinite. Since none of
these observations make any sense, Einstein stated that nothing ca*
1
break the light barrier. (Because an object gets heavier the faster it
PHVSICS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE
youth Einstein realized that no one had ever seen a light wave that was
totally stationary, that is, like a frozen wave. Hence Newton's theory
did not make sense.
Finally, as a college student in Zurich studying Maxwell's theory,
Einstein found the answer. He discovered something that even Maxwell
did not know: that the speed of light was a constant, no matter how fast
you moved. If you raced toward or away from a light beam, it still traveled at the same velocity, but this trait violates common sense. Einstein
had found the answer to his childhood question: you can never race
alongside a light beam, since it always moves away from you at a constant speed, no matter how fast you move.
But Newtonian mechanics was a tightly constrained system: like
pulling on a loose thread, the entire theory could unravel if you made
the smallest change in its assumptions. In Newton's theory the passage
of time was uniform throughout the universe. One second on the Earth
was identical to one second on Venus or Mars. Similarly, meter sticks
placed on the Earth had the same length as meter sticks on Pluto. But
if the speed of light was always constant no matter how fast you moved,
there would need to be a major shakeup in our understanding of space
and time. Profound distortions of space and time would have to occur
to preserve the constancy of the speed of light.
According to Einstein, if you were in a speeding rocket ship, the
passage of time inside that rocket would have to slow down with respect to someone on Earth. Time beats at different rates, depending on
how fast you move. Furthermore, the space within that rocket ship
would get compressed, so that meter sticks could change in length, depending on your speed. And the mass of the rocket would increase as
well. If we were to peer into the rocket with our telescopes, we would
see clocks inside the rocket running slowly, people moving in slow
motion, and the people would appear flattened.
In fact, if the rocket were traveling at the speed of light, time would
apparently stop inside the rocket, the rocket would be compressed to
nothing, and the mass of the rocket would be infinite. Since none of
these observations make any sense, Einstein stated that nothing ca*
1
break the light barrier. (Because an object gets heavier the faster it