Einstein’s Year of Miracles: The Theory of General Relativity
In Einstein’s Year of Miracles: The Theory of General Relativity, narrator Kate Yule discusses the four papers that Einstein wrote in 1905, a year that is known as the Year of Miracles. One of those papers was on the Theory of Special Relativity. Watch how tennis balls being ejected from a moving truck appear stationary from the ground, but appear to move when observed from the truck. This illustrates how moving objects can appear differently when viewed alongside other moving objects. Learn how this theory can be applied to light to redefine the notion of time. This video is excerpted from BBC’s Einstein & Hawking: Masters of Our Universe, a mind-bending documentary that tells the story of how the two most famous scientists of the 20th Century transformed our understanding of the Universe and changed the world.
Lesson Express
Q: What was it that inspired Einstein to think about the nature of time?
A: A medieval clock tower in Bern inspired Einstein.
Q: In this model, what do we know about how objects (in this case, the tennis balls) move?
A: The motion of the tennis balls depends on the observer’s frame of reference. From the truck, the balls appear to move in a predictable way relative to the truck’s motion. From the ground, their motion combines the truck’s velocity with the velocity of the throw, making them appear to follow a different path.
Q: As the truck accelerates, what happens to what we see? How will our perception of the balls change?
A: If the truck moves at a constant speed and the balls are ejected at 25 mph relative to the truck, a person on the truck sees them moving at that speed. However, to someone on the ground, the balls' speed is a combination of the truck's speed and their ejection speed. If the truck reaches the same speed as the balls, they appear to drop straight down relative to the truck but still move forward relative to the ground.
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