Easy lessons in Einstein : $b A discussion of the more intelligible features of the theory of relativitySlosson, Edwin E. (Edwin Emery)
Science
Easy lessons in Einstein : $b A discussion of the more intelligible features of the theory of relativity
Slosson, Edwin E. (Edwin Emery)
Einstein, Albert, 1879-1955; Relativity (Physics)
But from such fantasies we can see that the order in which we view
events depends upon how fast and in what direction we are moving and
that past and future may be reversed to our vision. This is easily
made apparent by means of motion pictures. If the film is reeled off
in the wrong direction the action is reversed. So we see divers rising
gracefully out of the water and landing on the spring board. Newly
hatched chickens, dismayed at the sight of this unfriendly world,
calmly tuck themselves back into their broken shells which close in
upon them. When we have come to the close of a perfect Thanksgiving
Day the obliging operator may give us an encore of the dinner reversed
by running his machine backward. Then we see pieces of turkey politely
picked out of the mouths of the diners with their forks and replaced
upon the plates. When these are passed back to the carver he puts the
slices neatly in their places and the fowl is then sent back to the
oven to be unroasted. The cook then sticks on the feathers. The hired
man carries the turkey out to the chopping block where with one swift
stroke he restores the head and the fowl runs off backwards. This
is just as correct as the ordinary order. The sequence of events is
the same. Cause and effect are linked together as firmly as before,
only they have exchanged places. A scientist knowing nothing of our
world except from watching such reversed motion pictures might deduce
from them the same consistent and logical system of natural laws that
we now have although some of them, for instance, the second law of
thermo-dynamics, would be reversed in form.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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