The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less
>Say you woke up one day and your bed was gone. Your room, too. Gone. It's all gone. You wake up in an inky void. Not even a star. Okay, yes, it's a dumb idea, but just go with it. Now say you want to know if you move or not. Are you held fast in one spot? Or do you, say, list off to the left some? What I want to ask you is: Can you find out? Hell no. You can see that, sure. You don't need me to tell you. To move, you have to move to or away from ... well, from what? You'd have to say that you don't even get to use a word like "move" when you are the only body in that void.<p>This is not as self-evident as the author believes.<p>1. Having taught a great many college level physics students, they have trouble grasping this.<p>2. More importantly, there's a <i>reason</i> people pursued the theory of the aether for so long -- you have to actually do the fucking experiments to show that there's no absolute reference frame you could be said to be moving in.  Thinking that you can deduce physical facts about the universe <i>a priori</i> is the opposite of science.<p><i>e:</i> Suddenly remembered a Feynman bit from <i>Lectures</i> where he talks about <i>exactly</i> the attitude of treating this is somehow obvious: <a href="http://www.sciencechatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=20750" rel="nofollow">http://www.sciencechatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=207...</a>