You know what i've notice about the Theory of relativity?

Question

Nobody even understands it. Everybody always "explains it" by regurgitating the same drawn out story about moving and stationary clocks and what will happen, but NOBODY can say WHY. Nobody has ever said why to me to this day, and I challenge you to Tell my Why. I know it happens, (Supposedly), But Why.

Answer 1

I agree with you, Einstein talks about time dilation but he gives no practical explanation of why it happens. For what it is worth, here is my opinion. Time does not dilate, it is motion that slows within an object moving at near light speed. if you subject a clock to such a speed, the moving parts gain mass, the energy to move these parts at a constant rate in order to overcome the increased inertia of the parts, is not available, the clock will show time lost, but in reality this is not the case, it is the motion of the parts that have slowed.

Answer 2

It's a consequence of Einstein's (correct) assumption that the speed of light is the same in all reference frames.  I know it's regurgitating, but if I'm moving away from you, and a beam of light goes past both of us, we both measure it at the same speed relative to our own body.

Once you've made that assumption, all of the mathematical details like time dilation, length contraction, etc. are a result of that.  Those things have to be true if the first assumption is true.

Now, why do we always measure the speed of light to be the same... who knows?

-----------------Edit-----------------...

The Doppler effect was one thing I failed to mention, thank you. The Doppler effect is also a consequence of the original assumption.  Because two observers measure the same speed, they must measure different frequencies.  However, this doesn't work exactly the same as the conventional Doppler effect (for sound, say), and so for light it is called the Relativistic Doppler effect.  This is because we have a limiting speed which will stretch the wavelength to infinity.

The idea that clocks move slowly because their parts are more massive is interesting, and could be correct.  However, I would disagree since any object experiences time dilation, in exactly the same amount.  If a person was on a rocket that traveled at relativistic speeds, then returned to Earth, he/she would be younger than they should be, by the same amount that a clock on that rocket is slow compared to clocks on Earth.  If that were a result of more massive components (person, clock parts, etc), one would not expect them to slow down by the same amount.  Just my thoughts.

Answer 3

You say why... and I say why not?

Answer 4

First of all, DrCuprate is absolutely correct. My only thought on why we always measure the same velocity in all frames of reference could be based on the doppler effect (i am not sure).

Wavelength = speed (meters) divided by frequency). Assumiing we always see a constant speed (speed of light, of course), any change in the wavelength will see an inverse change in the frequency, thus preserving the velocity. Anyone care to expand on that (it is just a thought)?

Maybe only Einstein will ever figure it out.