Envision yourself traveling across the nation in a car while taking in the scenery. A tree in the distance approaches your car, goes straight by you, and then disappears into the distance once more.
Naturally, you are aware that the tree isn’t genuinely rising and moving in your direction or away from it. You are the one driving the car in the direction of the tree. Relativity, as defined by scientists, is the idea that the tree is only moving in relation to you. A friend who was standing by the tree would see you approaching them at the same speed as you perceive them to be approaching.
Speed of light and special relativity
Much later, in order to explain certain puzzling data for which there was at the time no intuitive explanation, Albert Einstein created the theory of what is now known as special relativity. The two main components of Einstein’s theory, which he assembled in 1905 with the contributions of numerous physicists and astronomers in the late 1800s, were the principle of relativity and the peculiar finding that nothing can move faster than the speed of light, which is the same for all observers. No matter where they are or how quickly they are going, everyone measuring the speed of light will obtain the same result.
Suppose your friend is standing by the tree and you are traveling at sixty miles per hour in your car. You would reasonably assume that you would see your friend and the tree traveling toward you at 60 miles per hour and the ball traveling toward you at 120 miles per hour when they toss the ball in your direction at what they believe to be 60 miles per hour. That is actually a little off even though it is extremely near to the right value.
Motion is necessary for the perception of time.
As one or both of you approach the speed of light, there is a growing difference between the genuine answer and what you might anticipate by adding the two figures. You wouldn’t notice the ball flying toward you at 150% of the speed of light if you were in a rocket traveling at 75% the speed of light and your friend threw it at the same pace. The ball would still appear to be traveling toward you slower than the speed of light since nothing can move faster than light. Even though all of this may appear very unusual, these results are supported by a wealth of experimental data.
