Nope, NOT 20 m/s. To them the ball is transferring at 30 m/s (i.e., 10 + 20). A lot for widespread sense. The distinction arises from the truth that they’re measuring from completely different “reference frames,” one transferring, the opposite stationary.
It’s all good, although; everybody agrees on the end result. If the ball hits the particular person, the miscreants and the bystander would calculate the identical time of affect. Sure, the individuals within the automotive see the ball transferring at a slower pace, however additionally they see the bystander transferring towards them (from their perspective), so it really works out the identical in the long run.
That is the opposite foremost postulate of particular relativity: The physics are the identical for all reference frames—or to be particular, for all “inertial,” or non-accelerating, frames. Observers may be transferring at completely different velocities, however these velocities should be fixed.
Anyway, now perhaps you’ll be able to see why it’s truly fairly weird that the pace of sunshine is similar for all observers, no matter their movement.
Waves in an Empty Sea
How did Einstein get this loopy concept ? I’m going to indicate you two causes. The primary is that mild is an electromagnetic wave. Physicists had lengthy identified that mild behaved like a wave. However waves want a medium to “wave” in. Ocean waves require water; sound waves require air. Take away the medium and there’s no wave.
However then, what medium was daylight passing via because it traveled via area? Within the 1800s, many physicists believed there have to be a medium in area, and so they referred to as it the luminiferous aether as a result of that’s enjoyable to say.
In 1887, Albert Michelson and Edward Morley devised a intelligent experiment to detect this aether. They constructed a tool referred to as an interferometer, which cut up a beam of sunshine in half and despatched the halves alongside two paths of equal size, bouncing off mirrors, and merging once more at a detector, like this:
Illustration: Rhett Allain
