I love Al.
Albert Einstein.
Albert was born in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire, on March 14, 1879. I have people from that same area. I am wondering if some of my people knew his people.
Anyway, his parents were Hermann Einstein, a salesman and engineer, and Pauline Koch, also from that area.
Here’s the thing. Albert attended a Catholic elementary school in Munich from the age of five. Most people don’t know that he started out in a Catholic grade school, but this is important. In Catholic school, you learn all about relativity.
One hour at Mass feels like five hours.
One hour at Mass sitting right next to Sister Eunice feels like ten hours.
One hour of eating lunch, fixed by Mrs. Bomberger, and then going out to the playground for recess feels like three minutes.
And so it goes. Time is relative. Everything is relative.
E=mc2.
Energy equals mass times the speed of light. Squared.
What does this really mean?
On the most basic level, the equation says that energy and mass (matter) are interchangeable.
They are simply different forms of the same thing.
Under the right conditions, energy can become mass and vice versa.
Now. We thick humans don’t see them that way. I mean, how can a beam of light and a clump of mud, say, be different forms of the same thing? Well. Nature sees them as the same thing on the atomic level as pure energy.
But this isn’t a science lesson. This is about relativity.
For example. Consider our morals and ethics. Morality is not absolute. All of what we know and do depends on our cultural, societal, or individual perspectives.
Different cultures or individuals may have varying moral codes. What is considered right or wrong to one person may be totally different for another.
The same goes for our cultural behavior. What is considered normal or acceptable in one culture may be different from another.
Our human perceptions and understanding of the world are influenced by our makeup. Our past experiences. Where we come from. How we’ve been raised, and so on. Our cognitive frameworks lead us to different ways of perceiving and describing the world.
And then, as another example, as I mentioned above, relativity can be observed in everyday experiences. The speed at which we perceive time passing can vary depending on our activities and circumstances. Time may feel like it’s passing slowly when you’re getting a tooth pulled and quickly when you’re eating hot fudge brownies topped with vanilla ice cream.
The concept that “everything is relative” is that things are not absolute. Everything depends on something else. Whether we are talking about our physical reality, our mental awareness, or our cultural norms. Our perceptions are not absolute.
Yes. This has profound implications for how we understand the world and interact with the world in our human brains.
Context. Circumstances. All of our past experience assembles to form this single moment and how we see it.
It’s all relative.
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“Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.” – Albert Einstein
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“The distinction between the past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” – Albert Einstein
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“When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours. That’s relativity.” – Albert Einstein
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Everybody. It’s all relative. And I know relative.
