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@Science
Interesting fact of the day:
Despite popular belief it is not really correct to say the speed of light is a universal speed limit in the universe. It would be more correct to say one object can never go faster, relative to another object by the speed of light.
In other words, no matter what speed I am going relative to the earth (or anything else) doesn't matter; if there is some object going the same speed and direction as me I can still accelerate up to the speed of light faster than it.
All that matters is that nothing can go faster than the speed of light relative to me the observer.
#Science #Physics #Relativity #SpecialRelativity #Einstein #Space #astronomy #Astrophysics
@freemo @Science to be perfectly honest I have no science backround, I just find it really interesting. I never thought of time dilation as something that relativity applied to so I feel like I learned something in this conversation, but it's all definitely very mind bending. I have one other question since you said something about being absolutely stationary and I was under the impression that this wasn't really a thing that exists. are there actually stationary objects? is there any such thing as absolute motion that's meaningful in a way that's not dependent upon it's relativity to other objects?
People without science backgrounds is **exactly** who my OP is trying to target. It is people like you who have a curiosity about it, dont want to necessarily do the complex math, but do want to understand it in basic terms, that I feel are neglected.
It is a surprisingly simple idea to understand, but it is very rare that anyone who knows the topic will enough will actually both to explain it to someone like you in simple terms. So there is a gap of ignorance despite the curiosity and I dont like that, I dont like ignorance particularly when people are more than willing to try to understand.
So by all means **please** keep asking questions and take this conversation as far as you would like to get some understanding of the topic.
> I have one other question since you said something about being absolutely stationary and I was under the impression that this wasn't really a thing that exists
When i say absolutely stationary I mean that the distance and direction between you and some object are fixed. Better wording would have been "perfectly stationary", as in relative to someone or something else.
> I was under the impression that this wasn't really a thing that exists. are there actually stationary objects?
Your impression was correct there is no concept of stationary outside of relative terms.
> s there any such thing as absolute motion that's meaningful in a way that's not dependent upon it's relativity to other objects?
No there is not, not in any sense what so ever. It always must be relative to some thing. There is also no point that could be considered "the center of the universe" or even "where the big bang happened" which one might think if there were could be used as an absolute reference point. But no such point exists. The whole of the universe is where the big bang occurred more or less. The center of the universe, in any meaningful sense, is always wherever you happen to be, quite literally.
@freemo @Science wow! okay, it's definitely amazing because this subject is something I always found super interesting but it never made sense until today. I think I learned everything I need to know to be satisfied for the time being, but I'm very grateful that you took the time to answer all my questions in a way that made it all make sense. I had actually heard of space expanding and contracting in this context but nobody ever put all the elements together for me in a way that showed their relationship to each other and that's what really made the difference to my understanding of it!