I began my quest to understand Relativity by downloading an Audible Great Course titled Einstein’s Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Non-Scientists. This seemed like an unintimidating place to start. Plus, Lecture 1 is titled Time Travel, Tunneling, Tennis, and Tea. So naturally with tea in the title this was the course for me.
Professor Richard Wolfson begins by describing a few bazar situations that are consequences of Einstein’s theories. One of the more popular consequences is the time traveling twins. I must confess, I find this idea quite preposterous, however he assures us that later in the course we will understand why this must be true.
So, let us take a step back. What is physics? According to Wolfson, physics is not some specialty field that only extremely smart people study and has nothing to do with the regular Joe’s day to day. Physics is the study of the entire physical universe to include everything between the subatomic particles and the scale of our entire universe. Physics is involved in all of our day to day lives—driving to work, playing fetch with your dog, brewing a cup of tea, and so much more. Physics is a field of study we all engage with every single day. Physics is for all of us.
Perhaps one of the most thought-provoking ideas is that physics is a human activity. All of the theories and experiments have influence from human nature. Our culture is largely what decides what we find important and hypothesize to be correct. We, as humans, look to those who came before us and build on top of their foundational knowledge. Step by step we have found ourselves in the modern era of physics. In the words of Sir Isaac Newton, “If I have seen further, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”
There is no need to be intimidated. Part of understanding our physical world is making a guess and carefully observing the physical reality. Many times, these guesses end up being wrong, but sometimes we stumble upon a miraculous discovery. We are all capable of guessing and it turns out we are all capable of being wrong. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. So, put on your pot of tea and start observing the physical reality around you. Who knows, you might just stumble across something incredible?
If I have seen further, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.
Sir Isaac Newton
The Theory of Relativitea 