Often hailed as one of the greatest scientists of all time for his revolutionary ideas in physics, Albert Einstein has become a household name. Along with popularity and fame, Einstein and his ideas have also been submitted to various degrees of challenges from scientists and the general public alike. Most of these challenges arise from simple thought experiments where people simply “think up” possible situations and its consequences to test out a current theory. Below is a short video of a thought experiment where Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity is seemingly contradicted.
However, before you jump into the video, a brief introduction to Special Relativity is required. I’m sure that most of you have heard of the famous equation E=mc2 where Einstein related an object’s mass to its energy. In other words, energy can be freely transformed to mass and vice versa. In effect, the kinectic energy of an object travelling through space can also be transformed into a gain in mass by the object, and this is precisely what Einstein determined to be the obstacle in reaching the speed of light. As an object’s speed approaches near light-speed, its kinetic energy starts converting to a gain in mass for the object rather than a gain in its velocity. In short, when an object is accelerated to a certain extent, its mass will increase rather than its speed; hence creating a cosmic speed limit. Based on this background information, the video below should make more sense.
[youtube lR4tJr7sMPM]As explained in the video, nothing physical with mass was actually transported across the surface of the moon, therefore the rules of special relativity were not actually broken.
These are the types of thought experiments that physicists come up with every day in order to not only challenge previous theories, but also to provide mental exercises for themselves; and, such thought-provoking experiments are confined not only to the field of natural sciences as economists, philosophers and even politicians utilizes these experiments to probe their individual fields. A list of 10 of the most famous thought experiments can be found at the following website: http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-famous-thought-experiments.php
