Speed of Light and Space-Time Distortions
The greater our speed, the less time passes for us. In other words, even though the elapsed time is much longer than that of an observer elsewhere, we feel that time has passed for a shorter period of time because our speed is greater than that of that observer.
Let's say we are in a car and the maximum speed of the vehicle is 100 km/h. We are travelling on a straight road at full speed.
Another vehicle is following us from behind. For example a police car.
Let's say the policeman behind the wheel of the police car looks at his speedometer and sees that he has a speed of 50 km per hour.
The other police officer sitting next to him has a speed measuring device. He holds it towards our car and measures our speed as 100 km per hour.
No way!
If the speed of the police car is 50 kilometres per hour and our speed is 100 kilometres per hour, the speed measuring device in the hand of the police officer should show that our speed is 50 kilometres per hour!
Because the vehicle following behind feels that our speed is the difference between our speeds. Therefore, the measuring device should show our speed as 50 kilometres per hour!
You are right, when it comes to the vehicles we know, vehicles travelling on the road have relative speeds to each other. From inside a moving vehicle, the speed of the other vehicle is felt as whatever the speed difference between the vehicles is.
If there is a speed measuring device in the vehicle behind, it will show the speed of the vehicle in front as the difference between the speeds of the vehicles on the speedometer.
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However, this is not the case when it comes to the speed of light!
If we accept the speed of the vehicle in front, i.e. our speed of 100 kilometres per hour, as the speed of light, our speed measured from the vehicle behind will be 100 kilometres per hour in any case.
Moreover, if the police car behind us steps on the accelerator and increases its speed to 80 kilometres per hour in order to approach us and measures our speed again, our speed will be 100 kilometres per hour.
Even if the police car accelerates completely and reaches a speed of 99 kilometres per hour, it will still find our speed to be 100 kilometres per hour.
So how can this happen?
How this happens is not important for this article. This is the situation in our universe when it comes to the speed of light. The speed of light is constant in all cases!
This situation has puzzled minds for a long time. They have thought for years and years, but they could not find an explanation for the situation!
Let us think about how we can formulate this situation.
Since the speed of light is the highest speed that can be reached in the universe, let's consider the maximum speed that both vehicles can reach as 100 kilometres per hour. Let this be our speed of light limit!
This means that the speed limits of the vehicles will be from 0 kilometres per hour to 100 kilometres per hour.
Since the speed of light does not change no matter how fast we go, even with reverse gear, we need to take into account the police car travelling in reverse in our example, but we will check this situation later.
For now, let's formulate the normal direction, the rest can be done later.
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Yes, what we were saying, the police officer measures our speed as 100 km per hour when the speed of the police car is 0 km per hour, that is, we can call this position when the police car is parked on the side of the road, and he also measures our speed as 100 km per hour no matter how fast he is coming after us.
Because we are travelling at the speed of light in our sample universe!
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What is speed?
It is the ratio of a certain distance travelled in a certain time to the time interval that has elapsed since the start of the movement!
V=distance/time
In other words, if our speed is measured as a constant speed in every relative situation, either the distance travelled or the time elapsed must be changing in such a way that the result is constant in every situation.
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Einstein thought that if we measure the speed of light as constant, then both of these values in the calculation of the speed of light change relatively, rather than either one of them.
So we call this situation space-time bending.
The greater our speed, the less time progresses for us. In other words, even though the elapsed time is much longer than that of an observer elsewhere, we feel that time has passed for a shorter period of time because our speed is greater than that of that observer.
At the same time, as we accelerate, the distances in front of us also shorten. In other words, 1 km is now measured by us as a much shorter distance.
This is a difficult concept to understand, but experiments have proved that the formula is correct.
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In this case, the time felt by the police officer in the police car standing on the side of the road flows faster than our time.
Let's say he feels an hour as an hour because the police car has stopped. 100 km is measured as 100 km.
Therefore, he measures our speed as 100 km per hour as we pass by.
But for example, when it is travelling at 50 km/h behind us, the time interval of 1 hour is no longer 1 hour for it. Now, the 1 hour that elapses while stopping is felt as 45 minutes, i.e. 0.75 hours. A distance of 100 km is measured as 75 km.
In this case, the police officer sitting in the seat next to us measures our speed as 100 kilometres per hour.
If the police car increases its speed a little more, for example to 80 km/h, then the 1 hour spent at a standstill will now be 30 minutes, but the distance we have travelled will be 50 km. Therefore, our speed will again increase to 100 km per hour!
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Interesting, but easy!
Why is this space-time warping called so complicated?
It's not just called complicated, it has really complicated formulae, because the time and dimension shifts are not in linear proportions as in our example.
In the formulae, time changes in proportion to the square of the velocities, and in this case everything has to be formulated parabolically.
In other words, the logic of space-time warping is simple, but the formulae are quite complicated.
Therefore, as I said at the beginning of the article, what I said let's put this subject into a formula is not the subject of such a simple article.
My aim is just to put the logic of this subject into our heads a little bit. I hope we have been able to understand the speed of light a little bit for now.
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In the meantime, why the square, why not the cube, for example, is a question that comes to mind.
Einstein, who thought a lot on this subject, calculated that time bends in proportion to the square of the speed.
Let me end this article by saying that he must have known something.
It is necessary to think a lot to understand some things, do not hesitate to think and scrutinise. Because this is the only way science becomes science.
Stay with science, you will not be wrong.
Love and respect to everyone from Moscow.
