“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.” —Albert Einstein
Einstein’s analogy not working for you?
Consider the converse. Sit with a pretty stove for a minute. Like how it feels? Now imagine it in your kitchen. For only four-seventy-nine dollars, it’s yours, and comes with Whirlpool’s traditional one-year limited warranty. What’s that? Four hundred and seventy-nine sounds too expensive for you? Didn’t you just spend a couple hundred bucks in one night at Del Frisco’s? That’s relativity.
Relativity is abstract, I know. Let’s give it some specificity, to see if we can make it more accessible for you. Assume, for the sake of argument, that the pretty girl’s name is Eliza, or “Liz”. Sit with Liz for an hour, and it seems—you know all too well—like a minute. Liz sits with you for an hour, and, don’t take it the wrong way, but she really needs to go, she just remembered she had an orthodontist appointment. That’s life.
Assume now that you and Liz are each in your own space shuttle, hurtling towards each other at close to the speed of light. Here, in your shuttle, all seems normal to you—your length, weight, and mass are all held constant in your inertial reference frame, and time ticks by at its ordinary pace, one second per second. Whereas over there, in Liz’s shuttle, well, she can’t wait for this interaction to be over. Be sure to apply the Lorentz transformation. That’s special relativity.
Now assume all of this is happening on your birthday. Awww, good for you. That’s very special relativity.
Ok, same as above, but now all of this is occurring inside an elevator, and in a gravity-free region of space to boot. Here, in this strange and seemingly inert metallic cabin, adrift in an otherwise lifeless Gedankenexperiment (German for “thought experiment”), there appears to be a spark between you and Liz. Believe it or not, the ray of light emitted by that spark bends, subtly but unmistakably. That’s general relativity, and it led to Einstein’s so-called “happiest thought”—namely, the hope of you and Liz potentially hitting it off.
Let’s get real, though, you’re getting carried away. You think Liz likes you… because you guys chatted for, what was it again, an hour? That’s ridiculous.
Yes, I know that she said, “You’re a sweet guy.” And that you think that your world-weariness is just the right antidote for Liz’s sauciness. And yes, isn’t it nice that your and Liz’s birthdays are only two days apart. That’s irrelevant.
Back to the Whirlpool stove. It’s a free-standing range, five-point-one cubic feet of capacity, stainless steel finish. You can match it up with other Whirlpool appliances (fridge, washer, dryer). Gotta come clean, though—it is not EnergyStar-certified and does not offer Sabbath mode. Hey, life is full of trade-offs. You win some, you lose some. That’s relativity.
Sit with a pretty girl for an hour. Sit with her—all we said is to sit with her. Not fawn over her. Not gush like an idiot. Not beg to treat her to a Frappuccino, and then a frittata. Not casually drop the term “Gedankenexperiment” on her. Not invite her to accompany you to BestBuy to get her advice on kitchen appliances. What in the world were you thinking?
Want to know how Liz felt during that time-delimited but interminable hour? You know how they say that light can’t escape from a black hole? She’s the light, and that date was the hole. I know it hurts, but no one said that relativity was easy, much less painless.
The stove. The girl. The stove. The girl. Four hundred and seventy-nine dollars. Ugh. You can’t stop thinking about Liz… Liz, Liz, Liz. Your stomach convulses from unrequited desire. At night, you twist and turn, second-guessing yourself. Was an hour too much? Too little? Your head is spinning. That’s–
Nope, you haven’t learned a thing. That’s the law of conservation of angular momentum.
