PHIL455 - Metaphysics of Science

First Assignment - Essay on Special Relativity

Lu Chen
14.03.21

The First Assignment on Special Relativity Theory and Time

1. What the most basic principles or postulates of special relativity? Explain each

principle.

1) Regardless of what the inertial frame of reference or any velocity of one's, the scientific

laws such as physics laws are the same, they do not change. And the second postulate is that:

2) The speed of light is the same for everyone. It has constant velocity, so it does not change

according to anyone else or any observer.

First, in order to understand Einstein's special relativity theory, we need to know what the

frame of reference, relativity and simultaneity is. Things look different according to what

frame of reference in. If your frame of reference changes, how other things look changes as

well. So, an inertial frame of reference is a reference which is about your velocity. And your

velocity is always relative to other things. Supposing that you are travelling by bus with your

friend. In that situation, you and your friend see each other with the same velocity. But

someone who is outside the bus sees that you are accelerating. I mean that your velocity

changes according to other people's inertial frame of reference (Effingham, p.11). So, your

velocity is always relative to other things. The first principle demonstrates that there is

something relative to other things, but physics laws do not change. Then, the second postulate

tells that Einstein asserted that the speed of light is constant. It is not relative to anything else.

We may think that the earth is orbiting the sun, its direction is changing, and it has a velocity.
Then the velocity of light should have changed because the earth orbited the sun. However,

the speed of light does not change, it is exactly the same. In the universe, the fastest thing is

light. Nothing can reach the speed of light because if one thing accelerates, then its mass

increases, so it cannot accelerate as light. The speed of light is constant, and everyone has to

measure it the same. The speed of light is independent of anyone's frame of reference and

velocity. The second principle tells us that. Light always travels at a constant velocity (it is c)

from anyone's inertial frame of reference.

2. What does the theory imply about simultaneity?

The special relativity claims that your velocity is always relative to something. Like this,

simultaneity is also relative to one's inertial frame of reference. If one event is simultaneous

with another event, this is not true for everyone. Simultaneity changes according to one's

inertial frame of reference. When something is simultaneous, people think that they are not

simultaneous because these people are in different inertial frame of references. Similarly, time

is also relative to other things. If something is moving at a high velocity relative to other

things, time looks like slowing down. So, being time relative to other things is challenging

with presentism because presentism claims that only present things exist. However, according

to Einstein what exists depend on what inertial frame people are in. It depends on how fast

people are going.

3. What are some empirical predictions of special relativity? Mention one or more.

According to the special relativity theory, time is relative to other people's inertial frame they

are in. Time can vary depending on an observer. If you move faster, time appears to slow

down. The "Lorentz contractions" demonstrate this idea. If something accelerates, time

appears to slow down, things gain mass, and their shapes change as well. As they gain mass,

they cannot gain more speed and they never reach to the speed of light. In that sense, Lorentz

contractions support special relativity. Time, space and velocity are not independent things,
on the contrary, they are relative and depend on each other. On the other hand, in 1887, Albert

Michelson and Edward Morley conducted an experiment and they saw that the velocity of

light does not change, it has a constant velocity. It does not depend upon anyone's inertial

frame of reference, so it is not relative. They demonstrated this with their experiment, and this

supported Einstein's special relativity theory. According to special relativity, the speed of light

is the same for everyone. In his book "A Brief History of Time", Hawking mentions about

that "As we have seen, Maxwell’s equations predicted that the speed of light should be the

same whatever the speed of the source, and this has been confirmed by accurate

measurements" (p. 15). Like this, other empirical investigations supported special relativity

theory. Then Hawking claims that "Between 1887 and 1905 there were several attempts, most

notably by the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz, to explain the result of the Michelson-

Morley experiment in terms of objects contracting and clocks slowing down when they

moved through the ether. However, in a famous paper in 1905, a hitherto unknown clerk in

the Swiss patent office, Albert Einstein, pointed out that the whole idea of an ether was

unnecessary, providing one was willing to abandon the idea of absolute time" (p. 11). The

Lorentz contractions and Michelson-Morley experiment supported and demonstrated

Einstein's theory. For Einstein, time is relative, it is not absolute.

References:

Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time, Chapter 2, Space and Time, (p. 1-101).

Effingham, Nikk. An Introduction to Ontology, (p. 147-165).