“Yes! that’s it.”
“What? What’s ‘it’?”
“I think I figured out why people have such a hard time with Einstein’s work on relativity.”
“Oh! That’s easy; it’s the maths, as people say in England.”
“No, that’s not it, though the ‘maths’ are a bit challenging.”
“I’m sure it’s the maths. Every time I think of Einstein, I think of a picture of him, turning as though to look at a class, a blackboard full of chalked numbers and symbols in the background. Bunch of formulae, I think.”
“True, the mathematics can be challenging, but there is a concept hidden among them that is the heart of my newfound understanding.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s the Principle of No Privileged Perspective. It applies to the speed of light. For all observers in all contexts, the speed of light is 300,000 kilometers per second. It doesn’t matter whether one is traveling in a spaceship or riding a tortoise, the speed of light is the same; it’s a constant. Space and time change, not the speed of light. That’s how that works. Travel very fast, almost as fast as light, and you’ll shorten in the direction of travel. Travel very fast, almost as fast as light, and you’ll age more slowly. In other words and as Einstein told us, for the speed of light to be a constant, space and time can’t be constant. In all this, regardless of the position or motion of an observer, light is constant. Take two observers; put one on a planet and the other on a spaceship, and both will perceive light as a constant. Again, there’s no privileged perspective. I suppose it’s the answer to Stephen Wright, the comedian’s question that goes something like, ‘If you drive the speed of light and turn on your headlights, will anything happen?’”
“So, what’s this have to do with understanding Einstein.?”
“Well, we’re accustomed to privileged vantage points. We believe we have one, that is, individuals believe they have one. Think of two people in conflict. Neither acknowledges the perspective of the other during the conflict. That’s the way we operate. We think our perspective is THE perspective, that we hold a privileged place. That’s our mindset. And that’s the reason that we struggle with a theory that rests on the Principle of No Privileged Perspective.
“We’ve trained our brains to isolate our perspectives from other perspectives and to stamp our perspectives as special. We act out this principle daily, but particularly so when we run up against a different religious, social, economic, or political perspective. It’s in that training that regardless of the maths involved, we struggle to understand a theory that assumes no privileged perspective. Come on; admit it. Don’t you see your perspective as THE perspective? Going back to relativity, I’d say that most people have that one stumbling block, that is, trying to break free from a perspective that they believe to be unique.”
“So…”
“So, all our arguments, all our conflicts derive from our belief in a Principle of Privileged Perspective, whereas relativity requires its antithesis. We just don’t make the switch. We just don’t relinquish. From that privileged perspective, we believe all else can be seen in unlimited variety, but not in absolute terms, the terms of our perspective. We believe that we are the constant. We say to ourselves, ‘I am the Constant; my perspective is the Constant.’”
“What? What’s ‘it’?”
“I think I figured out why people have such a hard time with Einstein’s work on relativity.”
“Oh! That’s easy; it’s the maths, as people say in England.”
“No, that’s not it, though the ‘maths’ are a bit challenging.”
“I’m sure it’s the maths. Every time I think of Einstein, I think of a picture of him, turning as though to look at a class, a blackboard full of chalked numbers and symbols in the background. Bunch of formulae, I think.”
“True, the mathematics can be challenging, but there is a concept hidden among them that is the heart of my newfound understanding.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s the Principle of No Privileged Perspective. It applies to the speed of light. For all observers in all contexts, the speed of light is 300,000 kilometers per second. It doesn’t matter whether one is traveling in a spaceship or riding a tortoise, the speed of light is the same; it’s a constant. Space and time change, not the speed of light. That’s how that works. Travel very fast, almost as fast as light, and you’ll shorten in the direction of travel. Travel very fast, almost as fast as light, and you’ll age more slowly. In other words and as Einstein told us, for the speed of light to be a constant, space and time can’t be constant. In all this, regardless of the position or motion of an observer, light is constant. Take two observers; put one on a planet and the other on a spaceship, and both will perceive light as a constant. Again, there’s no privileged perspective. I suppose it’s the answer to Stephen Wright, the comedian’s question that goes something like, ‘If you drive the speed of light and turn on your headlights, will anything happen?’”
“So, what’s this have to do with understanding Einstein.?”
“Well, we’re accustomed to privileged vantage points. We believe we have one, that is, individuals believe they have one. Think of two people in conflict. Neither acknowledges the perspective of the other during the conflict. That’s the way we operate. We think our perspective is THE perspective, that we hold a privileged place. That’s our mindset. And that’s the reason that we struggle with a theory that rests on the Principle of No Privileged Perspective.
“We’ve trained our brains to isolate our perspectives from other perspectives and to stamp our perspectives as special. We act out this principle daily, but particularly so when we run up against a different religious, social, economic, or political perspective. It’s in that training that regardless of the maths involved, we struggle to understand a theory that assumes no privileged perspective. Come on; admit it. Don’t you see your perspective as THE perspective? Going back to relativity, I’d say that most people have that one stumbling block, that is, trying to break free from a perspective that they believe to be unique.”
“So…”
“So, all our arguments, all our conflicts derive from our belief in a Principle of Privileged Perspective, whereas relativity requires its antithesis. We just don’t make the switch. We just don’t relinquish. From that privileged perspective, we believe all else can be seen in unlimited variety, but not in absolute terms, the terms of our perspective. We believe that we are the constant. We say to ourselves, ‘I am the Constant; my perspective is the Constant.’”
RSS Feed