Relativity

Around 1905, Albert Einstein was busy laying the groundwork on a theory that would change physics forever.  A theory that changed humanity forever. Through the development of his theory of Special Relativity (and later, General Relativity), Einstein was able to explain some of the mysteries of our universe and has since been proven correct.  To put briefly, his revolutionary theory changed the way people (physicists) thought about space and time (and many other things for that matter).

I make the distinction for physicists for a reason; relativity is a difficult concept for most people to grasp because it is not concrete, intuitive, or conceivable. Relativity's effects are more confined to the realm of nearly massless particles moving near the speed of light whereas Classical (or Newtonian) physics deal with objects of any appreciable mass (a moving human being falls into the latter category).  It impacts our lives by dictating the laws of the universe and the vast majority of us, 99.99% of us, will never directly observe it.  However, an interesting consequence of relativity is time dilation.  Basically stated, time dilation requires that as speed is increased, time slows down relative to a stationary observer (that is, the slowing down if time is not evident to the traveler).

To be sure, Einstein's equations still hold true and reduce to classical equations when applied to humanly achievable speeds.  So, if relativity is more applicable to the macro scale of the Universe or on the subatomic quantum scale, why am I spending so much time thinking about it?  Because I've been riding my bike; that's why.

Riding my bike provides me with a mental and physical outlet; cycling has allowed me to draw parallels and antitheses to relativity.  Recall that a moving object's length and time both contract with respect to a stationary observer.  Here's the parallel:  to a cyclist pulling at the front of a paceline (or at least for me) these relativistic ideas cross my mind: "If I go a little bit faster, I can make it from here to there sooner...spend less time at the front...end this misery now..."  It is as if time and distance are being shortened.  Though these thoughts are easily proven by classical physics (as speed equals distance per time), in my mind they are relativistic in nature.  Therein lies the undoing of my cycling induced physics lesson; time dilation and length contraction are not apparent to the object in motion.

These perceptions are only in my mind because I have put them there and not because they are actually occurring or are even measurable at such terrestrial speeds.  Obviously that won't stop me from thinking about it. Sometimes the mind's perceptions become reality.