Quotes About Relativity

Problem 1: Combine general relativity and quantum theory into a single theory that can claim to be the complete theory of nature. This is called the problem of quantum gravity.

Besides the argument based on the unity of nature, there are problems specific to each theory that call for unification with the other. Each has a problem of infinities. In nature, we have yet to encounter anything measurable that has an infinite value. But in both quantum theory and general relativity, we encounter predictions of physically sensible quantities becoming infinite. This is likely the way that nature punishes impudent theorists who dare to break her unity.

In 1914, a Finnish physicist named Gunnar Nordstrom found that all you had to do to unify gravity with electromagnetism was increase the dimensions of space by one. He wrote the equations that describe electromagnetism in a world with four dimensions of space (and one of time), and out popped gravity. Just by the extra dimension of space, you got a unification of gravity with electromagnetism that was also perfectly consistent with Einstein's special theory of relativity.

Being at rest becomes merely a special case of uniform motion-it is just motion at zero speed.

I'll describe the original approach of Barbour, but most of what I'll have to say applies to Gomes's version9, as well as more recent work of Barbour and his collaborators. A moment, for them, is a configuration of the universe as a whole. These configurations, according to Barbour and Gomes, are relational configurations, which code all the relations that can be captured in a moment, such as relative distances and relative sizes.

How can it be that there is no distinction between motion and rest? The key is to realize that whether a body is moving or not has no absolute meaning. Motion is defined only with respect to an observer, who can be moving or not. If you are moving past me at a steady rate, then the cup of coffee I perceive to be at rest on my table is moving with respect to you.

One way to unify things that appear different is to show that the apparent difference is due to the difference in the perspective of the observers. A distinction that was previously considered absolute becomes relative. This kind of unification is rare and represents the highest form of scientific creativity. When it is achieved, it radically alters our view of the world.

Quantum mechanics has to be expanded, to allow for many different descriptions, depending on who the observer is.

Evil to some is always good to others

Well, evil to some is always good to others.

In spacetime, all events are baked together: a four-dimensional continuum. Past and future are no more privileged than left and right or up and down.

everything is relative. you, for instance, are my relative.

There is your truth and there is my truth...as for the universal truth it does not exist.

Here the attention of the research workers is primarily directed to the problem of reconciling the claims of the special relativity theory with those of the quantum theory. The extraordinary advances made in this field by Dirac ... leave open the question whether it will be possible to satisfy the claims of the two theories without at the same time determining the Sommerfeld fine-structure constant.

There is no Jesus without Judas, no Martin Luther King, Jr., without the Klan; no Ali without Joe Frazier; no freedom without tyranny. No wisdom exists that does not include perspective. Relativity is the greatest gift.

The distances across that atom, in relative measure, are the same as the distances across the universe. So there is no big and no little and I'm left to realize that the pain I feel, relative to me, is as big as two galaxies moving apart in the universe

If humans are ever to understand one another, they will have to come to terms with the concept, and the reality, of relativity. In essence, that's what the Earthgame is about. They will have to see how things look compared to other things. Once you understand that nothing exists without its opposite, you understand nothing is good and nothing is evil, that opposites actually hold each other up.

Four minutes," Walter said, "seems like four hours.

There is no room for absolute truth upon any subject whatsoever, in a world as finite and conditioned as man is himself. But there are relative truths, and we have to make the best we can of them.

one of the key features of a black hole: different observers have paradoxically different perceptions of the same events. To

La pasividad de una cosa espacio temporal se constituye a partir de su relatividad existencial.Una existencia relativa no puede ser más que pasiva puesto que la menor actividad la liberaria de lo relativo y lo constituiría en lo absoluto.

Any measurement must take into account the position of the observer. There is no such thing as measurement absolute, there is only measurement relative.

Relativity challenges your basic intuitions that you've built up from everyday experience. It says your experience of time is not what you think it is, that time is malleable. Your experience of space is not what you think it is; it can stretch and shrink.

In Einstein's general relativity the structure of space can change but not its topology. Topology is the property of something that doesn't change when you bend it or stretch it as long as you don't break anything.