Einstein's Theory of Relativity Explained

Video Transcript

"Hello my name is Remy Dou, I'm a science teacher here at Miami Christian School in Miami, Florida. Let's talk a little bit about Einstein's theory of relativity. Einstein was really made famous because of his theory of relativity. Which is really a combination of two theories. The theory of special relativity and the theory of general relativity. Let's understand the theory of special relativity first because it relates to general relativity. The theory of special relativity states that light, despite your frame of reference always travels at the same speed. What does that mean? For example, let's say you were in a car and there's a little kid in the back of the car and the child throws a ball. Let's say the ball's thrown at five miles per hour. Now from your perspective inside of the car the ball's thrown at five miles per hour but if the car's moving at thirty miles per hour from the perspective of somebody standing outside of the car, that ball would be traveling at 35 miles per hour. In other words the velocity of the car plus the velocity of the ball. You would think that if that child sitting in the back seat would turn on a flash light then the light being emitted from that flashlight would be traveling at the speed of light plus the velocity of the car. But in reality this is not true. And Albert Einstein explained that light, regardless of your frame of reference, whether you're in the car or outside of the car, it's always going to travel at 186,000 miles per second. That's the theory of special relativity. The theory of general relativity states that gravity is caused by the fabric of space and time. Space and time is related in forms of fabric. And when massive objects are in that fabric they call it indentations that basically create gravity."