DeLong Smackdown Watch: The Theory of Relativity
Matthew Johnson writes:
The Theory of Relativity: Is It Time to "Teach the Controversy" in America's High Schools?: "Outside of everyday human experience"? Not so, mon amis, not so.
This is why it was such a valuable part of the Caltech experience that my then physics professor started his best lecture of the year by entering the room, turning on the light, and saying, "that was a relativity demonstration"; then he tossed an eraser lightly in the air, so that it would clearly tumble as it fell, and said, "that was a general relativity demonstration".
Then he spent the next 20-30 min. or so explaining why these everyday phenomena really ARE "relativity demonstrations", showing that we now understand these phenomena better than ever before now that we understand them in the light of the theories of special and general relativity.
