Reconstructing Relativity

How does Relativity work, physically? Can you picture it in your mind's eye? Does your understanding of Relativity leave you with a sense that something more needs to be explained?

This book does not challenge Einstein's result in any way. Rather, it brings Relativity onto the realm of common sense. Because the nature of matter was poorly understood in 1905, Einstein could not conceive of a constructive model for Relativity involving a light-bearing medium. Rather, he developed Relativity based on a formal principle.

This book is essentially a prequel to Relativity - a new foundation. It develops a constructive model based on more recent understanding of the nature of matter. The model shows why Einstein's Principle of Relativity is true and explains all the familiar phenomena associated with Special Relativity using simple graphical images and basic concepts of trigonometry.

If this book challenges anything, it is the unsettling philosophical baggage that came with the original development of the theory. When observers in relative motion make measurements, they get different, yet equally valid results. By equating measurement with Truth, Science has asserted that Truth itself is relative, a concept that has unfortunately been taken up by the culture at large. We can propose a more harmonious philosophy in which a single Absolute Truth exists but is not determinable by measurement.

The distinction is subtle, but valuable. Because we, and all our measuring instruments, exist in the Universe, we cannot form precise objective conclusions about reality. But we can understand the specific reasons for this physical subjectivity while maintaining a harmonious philosophy that allows for the existence of a single coherent reality.