The story of Relativity goes back to the 17th century and the work of famed Italian astronomer and polymath Galileo Galilei. But with a little patience and dedication, the Theory of Relativity is something that anyone is capable of understanding. While Einstein’s insights would be confirmed within a few years, they continue to be tested and validated to this very day.Īlbert Einstein in his office at the University of Berlin, published in the USA in 1920.Īs Einstein is credited with once saying, “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” But as noted already, doing that means getting into some history and advanced concepts – like universal gravitation, inertial reference frames, mass-energy equivalence, spacetime, etc. Over the next ten years, Einstien would attempt to generalize the theory to explain how electromagnetism and classic mechanics could be resolved with gravity – which yielded the General Theory of Relativity. To break it down, Einstein proposed the Special Theory of Relativity in 1905 to resolve experiments involving light with classical physics. As you can probably tell, explaining how Einstein’s groundbreaking theory works require a deep dive into the history of physics, some advanced concepts, and how it all came together for one of the greatest minds of all time. And the term “Relativity” itself goes back to Galileo Galilei and his explanation for why motion and velocity are relative to the observer. In fact, Relativity may be the best-known scientific concept that few people truly understand.įor example, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity comes in two parts: the Special Theory of Relativity (SR), and the General Theory of Relativity (GR). But the most famous and renowned is arguably Albert Einstein, Relativity, and the famous equation, E=mc 2. In terms of theories, there’s Archimede’s “Eureka,” Newton’s Apple (Universal Gravitation), and Schrodinger’s Cat (quantum mechanics). In terms of scientists, notable examples include Pythagoras, Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Planck, and Hawking. In the history of science and physics, several scholars, theories, and equations have become household names.

Einstein it's all relative