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OF QUANTUM MECHANICS

 

 

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 The Theory of Gravity

 

CONCEPTUAL RELATIVITY

No Math at All

by Chongo in collaboration with José

An in-depth, conceptual explanation of the fundamental principles from which the Theory of Relativity is based, explained in the fewest number of words that it can be adequately explained, without resorting to mathematical notation. There is not a single mathematical symbol contained in the text (except the page numbers). The most basic foundations of classical science are described in a way that anyone, regardless of their educational background, can understand, and most of all, explained in such a way that one comes to understand just why they are – indeed, why they must be – true.

 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Prologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

I. Truth and Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

II. Opinion and Falsehood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

III. The Many Perspectives of Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

I. What Relativity Is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . 14
II. What Relativity Does . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

VI. The Dimensions of Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

VII. Motion According To Relativity . . . . . . . . . . . . .  .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

VII. Time’s Debut as a Dimension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

IX. The Problem with Light and the Discovery of Relativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

X. Dimension and Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . 26

XII. Time Being Identical to Space means Many Reference Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

XII. The Crux of Relativity: What ‘Now’ Is – And Isn’t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

XIII. Special Relativity’s Straight Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

XIV. The Conservation of Energy and Momentum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

XV. Tilting a Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

XVI. Relativity’s Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

XVII. Using Relativity for Explaining Gravity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

XVIII. What Relativity Means . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
XIX. What Relativity Doesn’t  Mean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Appendix A: Experiment Demonstrating Special Relativity’s ‘Tilting’ of a “Space” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Appendix B: Experiment to Reveal Our Physically Existent ‘True’ Individual Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Appendix C: The Shape of Space (‘True’ Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Glossary and Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

 

 

 

 

PREFACE

“By addressing the subject of theoretical physics, we are compelled to ask, how in the world can an accurate understanding of nature’s most fundamental truths so greatly enhance one’s life experience? What exactly are the benefits that understanding relativity yields? How can a greater understanding of the motion of far-away bodies, bodies much too distant to ever be seen with the naked eye, have any direct impact upon our everyday lives? How can the contemplation of the motion of tiny particles, so small that their existence can only be ‘inferred’, improve our participation in the bigger motions occurring around us and in us? How can an understanding of the overall shape of space and time have any significant impact upon anything? Why even learn such an obscure and abstract subject as relativity? Put more bluntly, why take all the time and effort needed to learn something that we will probably never use directly on a single occasion throughout our entire lives, outside of a classroom?

            “The answer is simple: learning relativity greatly enriches one’s life, by enriching one’s understanding of nature’s time and space in ways that that individual would have never otherwise imagined. Not only does learning relativity do that, but ultimately, it can lead to enriching one’s life even more by providing an understanding of why life itself even is at all. This is because relativity provides a basis for grasping the other side of theoretical physics, the theory of energy, formally termed the Theory of Quantum Mechanics. The Theory of Quantum Mechanics, or quantum theory for short, incorporates “an observer” into the math; an observer that seems like it must be alive, in order for the math to yield a result.  As a matter of fact, quantum theory not only incorporates an observer, it actually requires one, in order for there to “be” anything physically existent at all. So, although relativity says nothing about what life is, it leads to an accurate description of nature that amazingly, by requiring life, ultimately explains why life is. Moreover, it leads to that explanation in the same way that the speed of light being constant surprisingly explains gravity (as the reader shall discover, perhaps equally surprisingly, in Chapter Seventeen).

            “Understanding the simple principles underlying what is a truly monumental advancement in human understanding, and most importantly, recognizing that understanding these simple principles and the conclusions that they yield are within anyone’s conceptual grasp, can serve to remove the seeming distance that isolates common, widespread understanding of nature from what is truly, at its heart, a single, fundamental idea. That single idea is that time is a dimension, no different in any way at all from space. This single conclusion that relativity reveals tells us an enormous amount about our universe, and, when combined with another model, the Theory of Quantum Mechanics, ultimately leads to explaining why life is essential for there to even be a universe at all (see the companion volume, Conceptual Quantum Mechanics, at www.chongonation.com).

             “Thus we are left with the reality that for explaining nature, even for explaining life, one must gain an understanding of relativity, because no understanding of nature can be complete, or for that matter, ever make any kind of truly sensible statement about its space and time without relativity. The Theory of Quantum Mechanics even requires relativity in order to specify any measurement of when or where. We can speak of many things independently of it, but to speak of nature's most fundamental principles, it cannot be ignored. It is as fundamental as anything can be in nature.  It is a tool that is absolutely unsurpassed in performance for describing the motion of big things within space and time in an accurate way, and most significantly, for understanding a very simple yet absolutely inescapable phenomenon that we experience everywhere always called gravity; all of which being what the Theory of Relativity does so impeccably well. Learning real science begins with learning relativity – just as making science interesting to everyone should begin by studying relativity’s richness first too.”

 

 

 

© 2009 C. Tucker (Chongo)

All rights reserved.

 

 

 

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José

 

 

 

 

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the memory of a committed thinker, physicist, mathematician, a very conscientious human being, a scientist, a world-class rock climber, a skilled outdoorsman, as well my tutor, collaborator, and best friend, José.  His understanding of nature led to my ultimate understanding of it which will hopefully, eventually lead to many other people’s understanding of it too. 

We can all thank José.