Back to Topics │ Potential │ CheatSheetHub │ Start: Relativity & Reaction
End Notes: n/a
Observation
Like in the Nerd Cheat Sheet: Finding the Definition of Potential, I’ll start by building a simple, layman’s understanding of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. There are two parts to it, and the beginnings of the first were already hinted at in the Nerd Cheat Sheet: Poor Decisions by Society.
Special Relativity
Special Relativity began with the 19th-century hypothesis of the luminiferous ether—the idea that light needed a medium to travel through, just as sound needs air or waves need water. If Earth were moving through this ether, light should appear to travel at slightly different speeds depending on the direction of measurement.
The Michelson–Morley experiment put this idea to the test. They split a beam of light into two perpendicular paths:
- one running east–west, aligned with Earth’s motion
- one running north–south, across that motion
If the ether existed, the two light paths would take different times to complete their journeys. When recombined, this difference would create a tiny interference pattern—a phase shift.
What they expected:
A measurable fringe shift.
What they saw:
Nothing.
Under every orientation and at every time of day and year, the beams always returned in sync.
No ether wind.
No directional difference.
No variation in the speed of light.
This was more than a failed hypothesis—it revealed something deeper:
👉 The speed of light is constant for all observers, no matter how they are moving.
The only way this can be true is if space and time themselves adjust to preserve that constant speed. This single observation opened the door to Special Relativity.
The Speed of Light and the Speed of Sound
A simple childhood memory taught me that different senses operate on different timescales. Watching someone kick a football, the sound arrived a fraction of a second after I saw the impact. Light travels far faster than sound, and under the right conditions that difference is obvious.
My parents also taught me a trick to estimate the distance to a lightning strike: count the seconds between the flash and the thunder, divide by five, and you have roughly the distance in miles. Not perfect, but useful and comforting—more seconds meant more safety.
Even today, I often think of distance in terms of time. A mile seems trivial by car, substantial on foot. Time gives abstract distances meaning.
The same is true at global scale:
- Sydney → Hamburg by air: ~31 hours
- Sydney → Hamburg by sea: ~52 days
Time becomes the abstraction that makes vast distances relatable.
Looking at Big Things
When we look at the night sky, we see only a thin slice of the universe. Distances are so immense that light itself becomes a time machine. The Sun’s light takes 8 minutes 20 seconds to reach Earth. If it suddenly vanished, we wouldn’t know immediately—we’d live in the illusion for eight more minutes.
The Hubble Space Telescope shows us galaxies billions of light years away. We see them as they were—ancient, not current. Even nearby planets like Mars have moved slightly by the time their light reaches us, though our eyes can’t detect the difference.
A single light-year—light’s travel distance in one year—is beyond intuitive grasp. Here, our abstract sense of time steps in to carry the load.
Looking at Small Things
At around 13, my physics teacher demonstrated the approximate size of a molecule with a simple setup: a drop of oil, a bowl of water, lycopodium powder, and a micrometer. He measured the volume of the droplet, watched it spread into a thin film one molecule thick, and used that to estimate the height of a single molecule—about 1 × 10⁻¹⁰ meters.
Even with a demonstration, such scales are beyond intuition. Our senses evolved for middle-sized things, not galaxies or atoms. We depend on abstractions to make either end meaningful.
Comparison of Abstracts
Decision-making often involves comparing alternatives. Abstractions help us simplify the world by compressing complexity into manageable form:
- using time as a proxy for distance
- using scale models to understand the enormous
- using analogies to grasp the microscopic
These tools allow us to work effectively despite our sensory limitations.
The Impact of Daily Life on the Universe
Something as mundane as cleaning a cat tray shows how even small actions shift matter around:
- the cat adds waste
- the human removes it
- fresh litter is added
- molecules move, systems change
Zoomed-out, these changes are tiny in the cosmic sense. But at the household level, they matter.
Human influence works the same way. Each of us changes our small corner of the universe. With 150 or so people in our immediate social sphere, our actions ripple outward through relationships, ideas, and habits. The universe barely notices—but our communities do.
Relativity of When
Human threats evolved with our abilities. Early dangers were natural: storms, predators, disease. Later, human-created tools and weapons added new risks.
In the last century, technology multiplied our capacity for both creation and destruction. We now live at what some call the survival inflection point—the moment when technological power begins to exceed a society’s ability to manage it wisely.
This relates to the Fermi Paradox: if intelligent life is common, why the silence?
Several possibilities:
- Intelligent life may be extremely rare—Earth might be lucky.
- Speed-of-light limits might prevent civilizations from ever meeting.
- Most civilizations may destroy themselves before becoming spacefaring.
Humanity has broadcast radio for barely 130 years—our detectable “bubble” is only 130 light years wide. We’ve only just begun to look.
As humanity has reached a point where it can destroy itself leaves us with the unsettling possibility is that the Great Filter lies ahead of us—not behind – we do not belong to the wise who have got past this point.
Consequence
Einstein’s theory reveals a subtle truth:
our own human abstractions shape—and sometimes limit—how we think about reality.
We invented the comforting ideas that:
- time flows the same for everyone
- space is a fixed stage
- light must travel through something
These fit daily life but fall apart outside our sensory comfort zone.
Einstein questioned the abstractions themselves. Instead of assuming time was absolute, he asked:
What if the speed of light is absolute—and time is the thing that changes?
This conceptual shift opened everything.
And it parallels our own thinking. Many of our assumptions—about time, rules, values, and social structures—are human inventions, not universal truths. Their validity has limits.
“Up Was Down”
In Boston Legal, during the Hurricane Katrina episode, a lawyer described the chaos by saying, “Up was down.” Extreme conditions broke the normal rules. People behaved differently, systems collapsed, and familiar standards no longer applied.
Physics works the same way.
At everyday speeds and scales, time and space feel stable. But push beyond:
- near the speed of light
- near massive objects
- down to atomic scales
…and up is down there too. Time stretches. Space bends. Light curves. The deeper rules of reality reveal themselves.
Einstein didn’t show that time is imaginary—he showed that our assumptions about time were.
This insight extends beyond physics:
our personal rules, beliefs, and values also have validity limits. When conflicts arise, the goal should be to question assumptions—not condemn people.
Action
Out of 8 billion humans, only a few hold global power. But everyone exerts influence within their circle of about 150 people—the natural human social limit.
The Social Knowledge Base (SKB)—the accumulated habits, biases, beliefs, and shared knowledge of society—shapes what people think is reasonable or possible. Nations inherit infrastructure. Families inherit patterns. Individuals inherit culture.
The conflicts within the SKB are the root of most unnecessary human harm—not because people are evil, but because abstractions clash.
Our responsibility is to maintain balance:
- observe carefully
- assess consequences honestly
- act reasonably
- exchange views without condemnation
- challenge bad abstractions
- protect good ones
We cannot fix the world alone. But we can cultivate reason within our circles—and that’s where real change begins.
Humans will continue to reshape the Earth; change is inevitable and irreversible. The point is not to stop change, but to guide it with awareness, humility, and responsibility.
We cannot build a perfect world. But we can build a better one—starting with ourselves.
References
Michelson, A. A., & Morley, E. W. (1887). On the Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether. American Journal of Science, 34(203), 333–345. doi:10.2475/ajs.s3-34.203.333
Einstein, A. (1905). On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies. Annalen der Physik, 322(10), 891–921. doi:10.1002/andp.19053221004
Dyson, F. W., Eddington, A. S., & Davidson, C. (1920). A Determination of the Deflection of Light by the Sun’s Gravitational Field from Observations Made at the Total Eclipse of May 29, 1919. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 220, 291–333. doi:10.1098/rsta.1920.0009
📖 Series Roadmap
- Forward: A Little Background
- Introduction: Action, Reaction, and the Human Paradox (16.09.2025)
- Looking Back in Time: The Development of the Human Brain (23.09.2025)
- Abstract Senses: Enhancing the way we see the world outside (30.09.2025)
- Bias as a Concept & Climbing the Stairs: Pattern Recognition & Everyday Tasks (07.10.2025)
- Abstract Feelings and Abstract Senses (14.10.2025)
- Motivation (04.11.2025)
- The Social Knowledge Base (11.11.2025)
- Potential (18.11.2025)
- The Subliminal Way We Go Through Life (26.11.2025)
- Taking Responsibility (02.12.2025)
- Fishing for Complements (22.12.2025)
- Peter and Fermi (22.12.2025)
🔗 R&R Navigation
Back to Topics │ Potential │ CheatSheetHub │ Start: Relativity & Reaction
End Notes: n/a
Take a Second Thought 
Leave a comment