Weaving the Fabric of Space-Time: How Einstein’s Special Relativity Redefined the Foundations of Physics
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was a theoretical physicist and made numerous groundbreaking discoveries in the fields of physics, chemistry, and math and greatly influenced modern-day physics. Einstein’s well-known discoveries include the Photoelectric Effect, Wave-Particle Duality, and Special Relativity. Special Relativity addresses how speed affects time, mass, and space. The ideas introduced in Special Relativity spurred a paradigm shift in the field of physics as prior to its introduction, physicists thought of space and time as independent; however, Special Relativity presented the notion that space and time can indeed influence each other, introducing the idea of “space-time” (27.4: Implications of Special Relativity, 2018).
Raised in Munich, Germany, Einstein displayed curiosity from a young age. A compass, discovered at the age of five, sparked a lifelong fascination with invisible forces, and a geometry book he found let him teach himself geometry at the age of twelve. At sixteen, Einstein met Max Talmud, a medical student. Talmud introduced several books and ideas to Einstein. A pivotal moment for Einstein was when he theorized what a beam of light would look like if he were traveling alongside it, inspired by a book series Talmud told him about: Naturwissenschaftliche Volksbucher (1867–68; Popular Books on Physical Science) (Kaku, 2020). At the same age, Einstein published his first paper, “The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields,” which explored how velocities of aether waves propagate in magnetic fields to understand the state of aether in different magnetic fields (θεωρία Aπόφασις, 2024).
Although Einstein is now recognized as gifted, he struggled academically, excelling only in math and physics. When his father’s business failure relocated their family to Milan, Einstein was left alone in Munich with the expectation of finishing his education. Six months later, Einstein rejected this plan and ran away to his parents in Milan (Kaku, 2020). When applying to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School, Einstein completely failed the exam apart from the Maths and Physics sections. Fortunately, he was able to enroll in a program in the Federal Institute of Zürich. He immediately found the lectures intolerable, however, and never attended class. Using notes from a classmate, Einstein passed the final exam and earned his degree. Nevertheless, the repulsive experience deterred Einstein’s interest in science for a whole year (The Early Years | AMNH, 2012).
In 1905, Einstein published four groundbreaking papers. One of them, “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper,” (On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies) introduced two key ideas: the laws of physics are constant in all inertial reference frames and the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant. From these, Einstein derived several conclusions, one of which was time dilation–the idea that moving clocks tick slower than stationary ones (Einstein, 1905).
Consider a thought experiment. First, note the speed of light is constant for viewers in all reference frames, meaning whether an observer is moving or stationary, light always moves at the same speed c, as proven by Einstein. Consider a train with one observer inside and one stationary on the ground. Place a light source in the middle of the train car. If the train is stationary, the light takes equal time to reach the front and back for the observer on the ground. If the train is moving with velocity v, the time it takes to reach the front and back of the car will be different (figure below).
The light reaches the back and front of the car at a speed of c + v and c - v, respectively. Thus, the light reaches the back of the car faster than the front.
Put a clock at each end of the train car. We want the light to reach both ends of the moving train car simultaneously, from the perspective of the ground observer. Since the light reaches the back faster, move the light source toward the front of the car (figure below).
From the perspective of the ground observer, remember the light reaches the front of the train with velocity c - v and back of the train with velocity c + v. Consider the perspective of the person standing inside the train; this person is stationary relative to the train. For the observer in the train, if the speed of light going forward and back is the same, and the distance is different, then that means that the time it takes the light to reach the front clock and the back clock is different! According to the observer on the train, the light reaches the clock on the back after the clock at the front. This phenomenon is known as the Rear Clock Effect.
The Rear Clock Ahead Effect states if two clocks are synchronized and move at velocity v, then the front clock is behind the rear clock. Using the equation x=vt, we can determine the rear clock is ahead of the front clock by Lvc2 seconds, where L is the distance between clocks. This effect is imperceptible in daily life because c2 is so large, but becomes noticeable at near-light speeds, as in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, in which velocities of particles reach over 99.99999% of c(CERN, 2020).
Einstein’s discovery of the Special Theory of Relativity revolutionized physics by showing space and time are interdependent, forming the basis for theories like E=mc2. However, Special Relativity was just the beginning. In 1915, Einstein expanded on these ideas with his Theory of General Relativity, which addressed the influence of gravity on the fabric of space-time and provided explanations for phenomena such as black holes, gravitational vortexes, and gravitational waves. While Special Relativity could not explain everything, it introduced crucial foundations that allowed later innovations and theories, like General Relativity, to exist, bettering our understanding of the universe
Bad Blood Book Review
I just finished reading John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup. This book is a true story with true documentation from emails and quotes taken from interviews. I thought this book was a phenomenally written piece about a terrible, tragic saga. Bad Blood is about a startup that was founded in 2003 by a Stanford University dropout, Elizabeth Holmes. The company was developing technology that would quasi-instantaneously perform several laboratory blood tests inside a machine from one drop of finger-prick blood. This machine had the potential to revolutionize the medical industry, detecting diseases several times faster, assisting doctors in treatment, and allowing patients to be more health-conscious since these machines were intended to be available for consumers to buy. This was a noble idea, however the technology they were developing was less than performative. As seen in the book and numerous media articles and interviews about these events, the blood tests were highly inaccurate. Despite the technology’s flaws, Theranos lied to investors, proceeded in putting their machines in clinics, and deceived the media and their own employees resulting in a multi-million dollar lawsuit and several years in prison.
So why did Theranos’ technology fail? First was that it was extremely difficult to do as many tests as Theranos claimed to be able to do from one drop of blood. The blood had to be diluted a lot and that resulted in a lower concentration of the analytes (substances they were looking for) and decreased the accuracy of the tests. Second was that blood obtained from the finger, which was inherently different from the veins in that it was polluted by several other substances, so it was much harder to find the presence of disease-associated proteins. However, apart from the technical obstacles, one of Theranos’ main flaws was their secrecy, even within the company. Bad Blood talks about how the different parts of Theranos were guarded from each other - the only people who had the full picture of the progress within the company were the founder, Holmes, and her number two executive, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani. This kind of secrecy is detrimental to the development of a company because if each team is only responsible for their part, they can never fill the gaps and make their work integrated. In nearly all of Elon Musk’s companies, for instance, the design, engineering, and manufacturing teams all work together when developing a product. This ideology is that when creating a product, each of these parts goes hand in hand, so the people responsible should also work side by side. Another issue was that employees were discouraged from bringing up flaws in the product and brown-nosers were praised. An environment in which you cannot bring up the inherent flaws in a product inherently prevents any kind of advancement of the product, which is precisely what led to the many lies that were told about the state of Theranos’ technology.
Despite Theranos’s inadequate technology and secretive company culture, their vision may not be entirely fictitious. I saw an article recently about how some Stanford researchers may have developed an informative blood test that requires only a few drops of blood. Unlike Theranos, this research has been vetted and peer-reviewed. Many experts who are not affiliated with the study are saying that it has scientific backing. If this technology does work, it could truly change many lives and revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry.
Ultimately, Theranos lied and deceived their customers, business parters, and investors. Their technology didn’t work, they said it did, and they put hundreds of patients at risk of false positives, or worse, false negatives. But there are people out there who are working to bring the vision of a multitude of tests being able to be performed from a drop of blood, and, who knows, maybe this time the technology will actually work.