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Thoughts of Einstein

This is my fourth speech at toastmasters. I could not post it before because it was a complete sponti speech. No preparation whatsoever.

"God does not play dice", said Einstein and it is obviously the most famous thing he ever said. Ironically, it is one of the few things he said which are proved wrong.

Fellow toastmasters, I believe in the power of simple words and today, I am going to tell you his other thoughts which were his best. In a more flowery physicist language they are called "The Theory of Relativity". The thoughts are so complex that in Einstein's own time only 14 people on earth actually understood the whole thought. But using simple words, I hope to put them across.

To start with Einstein had two firm foundations to start with: two firm feet of belief to stand on. First one, the left foot was simple. He proposed that if Physics is a good science then if its rules are true for this chair , they should also be true for that chair. If they are true in this room they should be true for the room below this. If they are true on this planet, they should be true on any other planet.

The second, the right foot is a little tricky one. He reasoned that everything that moves has speed. So even light should have finite speed. So, because of this limit, light from the sun takes some time to reach earth. 8 and a half minutes. Light from some of the stars take years. That means that the light from the stars that we see today only proves that such and such star existed a thousand years ago. So there is no thing as the real time. There is no need to keep THE clock which shows the real time. HE said that everyone has to buy his own watch and keep his own time. I know that is expensive , but that is how it is.

Now the things start to get real confusing. Because now Einstein said , that if we are carrying a different watch then probably even the speeds of each of our watches is different. A second in my watch may be longer than the one in yours.

Manoj, always tells me that I don't use the stage much and stand at one place. So Suppose, that exactly at 1 o'clock, in both my and your watch, I start running here and there on this stage , to use it completely. And very fast for that matter. Then when I have been running for a long time and Manoj has pity on me and exactly at 2 O 'clock in his watch he asks me to stop.
Then what will you see. Of course, apart from me being all Sweaty, Smelly and Silly. If I show you my watch, and this being a glorified example, it will magically show only half past 1. This has nothing to do with "If you sit with a beautiful girl on a bus, one hour seems like a minute and if you sit on a stove, it seems like eternity" That is just relativity for dummies. Not for us. This experience in the flowery physics language is called "Time Dilation".

One other interesting thing that you will see and which is also beneficial to me. I will actually grow thin. This physicists scaringly call "Length contraction".

All this happens for real , why don't we see it? Because we need to see beyond our normal narrow vision to see them. Scientists and saints observe them in stars. They observe them in atoms.

So, students, if you already have had enough for today, lets disperse and meet in the next class.

Comments

Freehit said…
very interesting...but confusing....keep posting such informative posts....!!
Novocaine said…
Why don't we call it time contraction? :)

Awesomely written speech, pity I was not present to listen to it. It would have been funny to see your run on the stage :)

PS: You could have mentioned that very fast means 'nearing the speed of light'.
Novocaine said…
PPS: Just observed 'fraud counter daal rakha hai :P' Refresh ko bhi count karta hai :P :P

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