Can we really measure natural phenomena to high degree of accuracy in Relativity theory?
967856
They're both right. To the limits of our ability to measure relativistic effects, they confirm the theory. Of course we can't measure anything with absolute precision, and that's where Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle comes in. \n\nThe uncertainty principle states that either a body's position or momentum (state of motion) can be measured to an arbitrary degree of accuracy, but not both at the same time. In fact, the more accurate one measurement becomes the less accurate will be the other. \n\nThis is rather obvious, since if you have an exact position for something it's like one frame in a movie, so you have no idea how fast it's moving or in what direction at that instant. Conversely, the longer you observe an object in motion the better idea you have of its momentum, but to acquire this information the position of the object has to change.\n\nUncertainty usually applies to quantum mechanics but the principle applies everywhere. The biggest problem physics faces today is the fact that quantum theory and relativity theory work fantastically well with the very small and the very large, respectively, but they don't overlap or imply each other. We have two entirely separate theories to describe different aspects of reality - but they *must* be related in some subtle way that we haven't figured out yet, the so-called Theory Of Everything, or TOE.
398122
it depends on how you define physics - the study of natural phenomena is as old as the first time a human gazed at the stars and wondered what it was all about.  Probably the earliest rigorous study of natural phenomena dates back to Aristotle (around 350 BC) but most people would not consider that to be physics in the modern understanding of the word because it lacked the full rigour of the scientific method (observation and experimentation).  Physics in its modern form began in the renaissance with the likes of Newton and Gallileo - three to four hundred years ago.  The greatest challenge of physics today is that as the theories probe space and time at their extremes both large and small, it is becoming increasingly difficult and costly to design experiments to validate the theories.  "String theory" is a useful case in point - it is a theory that very neatly and elegantly ties together all of the forces of nature and reconciles Relativity with Quantum Mechanics - the problem is that it postulates an 11 dimensional universe that is thus far beyond the reach of experimentation and observation
833603
Perhaps, but the quatum effects would make it extremely difficult to measure.\n\nThis is the realm of quantum gravity and is really being researched heavily because there are so many paradoxes between relativity and quantum mechanics.
10953
well yeah... \nwell we dont have any definitive start or end point, so it's only relative to itself meaning that you can only measure a change in time, not how much of it you actually have. \nyour actual question is a little ambiguous, if this isnt what you meant, you can add some to the question,  are you looking for an explanation of how high velocities distort time or something, because I can explain that if you would like, just add it onto the question or make a new one or something.
1087698
>>  well let u know a secret did u know that we use only 10% of are brains and the outher 90% we dont even know about \n\nThis is supposed to be a secret?  It's only one of the most quoted "facts" in existence.  And it's completely nonsense.\n\nOh, and to the original question, most of relativity *has* been proven.
791646
Measurement itself is an agreed upon science. Is the Temperature 0d or 32d.  Its bloody cold, that we can agree on, but one person would argue it is 0d and the other would say it is 32d. They are both correct, it is cold. They are both incorrect because they have never experienced an off Earth temperature. A measuring device on Earth would behave differently on Planet Zoltan. \nThat is the role of Scientific Measurement, so that two can agree on a given science therefore justifying the theory as true, relatively speaking. \nSomeone agreed that a certain lasar would emit a beam at Xcm per US second, this is how the mirrors on the Moon are gauged to reflect an emmitted ray back to Earth. Is it accurate? it is agreed to be accurate, by a majority. Therefore it is. relativley speaking. \nSee that Einstien fella was pretty smart, he noticed that Relativity is. He also noted that Relativity is an agreed upon Theory, what is Relative to one observer, may not be the same to another,but that is what makes it relative and irrationally perfect at the same moment.
898693
google the BBC series... I know they've done a couple shows on special relativity. \n\nWatch The Cosmic Voyage.. it touches on the subject too.\n.
53950
Your "authority", if they was refering to relativity and time dilation, was wrong.\n\nThe special theory of relativity, including time dilation, is a well established experimental fact.  It has been tested and verified in many different ways (particle acceleators, cosmic rays, satellites, etc.).
916821
Yes the headlights will work!!  Einstein's theory of special relativity explains that space and time "dilate" as the observer approaches the speed of light so that the observer will ALWAYS be able to "measure" the speed of light to be 300 million meters per second no matter how fast he is traveling.
85344
Based on the relativity theory, there are many studies that are taking place to look into the possibility of traversing the time-space continuum.  As far as I know, we're not quite there yet.  But if and when we are, we should be able to tap into the theoritical "worm-holes" to go into different points in space without having to exume too much time.
634899
I don't know of one. Observations could be explained by having the Earth fixed and the Sun orbiting it. It's just that our laws of physics would have to change.
681184
Paul Davies carried out observations of light of quasars at 10 to 12 billion light years away and as this light originated near the birth of the universe and has traveled to us it has passed through clouds with metal gases. This puts a fingerprint on the light we received. \n\nOn analyzing the fingerprint they came across a variation with two reasons. With the aid of Stephen Hawking's formula for black holes Davies Davies Analyzed one part and tweaked Hawking's formula for the other. The final answer they arrived at through elimination was the speed of light was slowing down. Davies suggests that the vacuum of space is changing to affect the speed of light.\n\nWill this affect Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and it's significant formula E=mc^2. The short answer, in theoretical calculations at or near the speed of light or intense gravities there will be tiny variations but on the whole the formula will hold true.
1168822
To answer your question literally - Yes! I'm quite sure\nsomeone knows what the theory of relativity is.
830585
Y'know, I've been trying to get a handle on that for a long time, but so far I understand it to mean that post-Einstein, once you  include time as a fourth axis to the 3 spatial ones, the universe makes sense in terms of our physical laws working everywhere and everytime.  That is a neccessity of a good physical law - it must always work no matter where in the universe you test it or how fast you're travelling.  In other words, translations and rotations of objects or fields or whatever must have no effect on the validity of the law.  If you do not include time as an axis perpendicular to the 3 spatial ones (mathematically, of couse), what we predict won't agree with what we see, especially in such cases as high relative velocities (as in approacing the speed of light), and strong gravitational fields.  Amoung the oddest result of this view is that, in truth, all time actually exists simultaneously, and there is some not-quite-understood mechanism that only lets us see one instant at a time.\n\nAnyway, to answer your question, "How does spacetime work?", the answer is, much better than space or time alone and separate.  They are, in fact, as inseparable as the pair of poles of a magnet.\n\nThis all might be not quite accurate, especially since I'm so far just an "armchair physicist" with no formal education in the area, (tho I'm looking forward to taking physics, including the higher levels, if I can ever get thru these friggin' calculus classes).  Anybody else have something to contribute or set me straight on??
880820
Einstein has 2 theories of realivity.  The Special theory of relativey and the General theory of realtivity.  \n  The first simply means this in layman's terms.  All laws of physics laws are valid given that the state of object is in Uniform motion.  (uniform motion means a constant state of acceleration)\n  The General theory of relativity is all about gravity.  Basically it is a theory to explain the force of gravity.  \n   Although Neither theorys specifically mention time travel, many people have used the specifics of these theorys to try to show whether time travel is indeed possible.  \n    One of the principals of the general theory is that no object can travel faster than the speed of light.  Although this seems like qquite a simple statment it really isn't.  If you think about light and the things you are seeing "lets say your looking at the stars"  The light coming from those stars has traveled billions of miles to get to earth.  You are in fact seeing the light that a certain star has emmited in the past.  Now if you were to travel faster than light you could in effect travel through time and reach light events that people have yet to see.  \n   Now at face value you would say well since the theory of relativly states you can't travel faster than light this is impossible.  Here lies the catch.  The speed of light is always the speed of light (meaning if you were in car traveling at the speed of light down the road and you turned your headlights on the speed of the light from the headlights would still travel away from the car at the speed of light).\n   Now let's say your a person standing on some point and were watching the car travel at the speed of light.  The light that is coming from the cars headlights would to you seem to be traveling at 2times the speed of light. Get it?  \n   So when speaking relativisticly the frame of refrence is the most important factor.  Now one thing to note that time is NOT a constant.  It has been proven that the faster an object moves the slower time is for that object.  This indeed does work for everyday activities such as your car driving down the road.  Time for you is accually an extremely tiny bit slower than it is for the tree that you past on the road. \n    SO if we "could" get an object to move the speed of light or greater time could either stop or go in reverse for that object.  We cannot get matter to the speed of light at this time.  We have gotten close, but right now the laws of physics seem to prevent that.
1006016
Laser interferometry may be what you are looking for
378094
We do not notice the effects of relativity, since the mass-energy we encounter is too small and the speeds are too small relative to the speed of light. That is of course, unless your everyday life involves particle accelerators! The regime of the effects of special relativity can be measured with regard to gamma, thus:\n\ngamma=1/sqrt(1-(v^2/c^2)), where v = the object velocity and c = spped of light. If v/c (or v^2/c^2) is << 1, the effects wont be noticed, i.e the object is "non-relativistic".