Is Everything Relative?

Most recent answer: 05/18/2020

Q:
is everything relative?
- Iona (age 7)
London UK
A:

No. Many things are not relative. For example, whether two hings bump into each other gets the same answer in all different reference frames (points of view). What's surprising is that some things we thought were not relative, like the time between two events, turn out to depend on point of view. Others that seem like they should depend on point of view, like how fast a light ray is moving, don't. Learning that can shake up our sense of what we know about the world, but it doesn't mean that everything is relative.

Mike W.


(published on 05/18/2020)