A blog beginning!

Over the last 500 years, painstaking work by generations of scientists has produced an enormous “bank” of scientific knowledge. From the elegant yet simple standard model of physics that explained the fundamental building blocks of matter, to the periodic table of the elements that unlocked the secrets of chemical reactions, to the plate tectonic theory that explained earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain building, and finally to the big bang theory that uncovered the origin and evolution of the cosmos, each scientific discipline has contributed a key piece of the overall picture. Today, 10 years in to the 21st century, that picture has meshed into an extraordinary consistent body of knowledge about the nature and history of the universe.

Unfortunately, there’s far too much knowledge in the bank for any one person to grasp more than a small fraction of it, and scientists are making new deposits at a faster clip than ever before. Making matters even worse, most of the knowledge in the "bank of reality" is expressed in a specialized language, often involving advanced and esoteric forms of mathematics, that erects an insurmountable barrier between the bank and most nonspecialists.

Last January, a dear friend named Karl Baker, who I met through my husband Jim, died unexpectedly from complications of colon surgery. Barely into his 60’s when he met this decidedly untimely death, Karl had already established himself in my eyes as an “uncommonly uncommon” person. For example, although Karl lacked any formal training in the hard sciences, he had a keen interest in cosmology, the study of the nature, history, and fate of the universe. So strong was his curiosity that he actually researched the topic enough to write a lengthy and very interesting essay on the Big Bang.

Shortly after Karl died, I decided to write a blog to mark and honor his unusual willingness to wrap his mind around an esoteric scientific concept. Little did I know that this decision would mushroom into a series of blogs, complete with figures, diagrams, and even (horrors!) a little simple mathematics (very simple, I promise). But, mushroom it certainly did!

My goal with these blogs is admittedly rather ambitious. I aim to slowly, carefully, and cautiously familiarize you with time dilation, a key aspect of Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Why did I think this particular deposit in the Bank of Reality was worth unpacking to try to make it accessible to nonscientists? There are actually several reasons. First and foremost, in my humble opinion time dilation ranks up there with Newton’s laws of gravity and Maxwell’s equations explaining electromagnetism as one of the most important additions ever made to our understanding of physical reality. Simply stated, if you come to understand time dilation, you’ll have mastered one of the most important deposits in the bank. Second, there are good old-fashioned bragging rights to consider. Einstein is a famous figure even outside of scientific circles, but almost no one understands anything about his theories, and so no one has a clue as to why he’s so revered. Imagine the satisfaction that would come with living the rest of your life, smug with the realization that you “get” an important aspect of one of Albert Einstein’s theories! Imagine the thrill of being able to explain it to your children, grandchildren, or your students?

And, last but not least, learning about time dilation is actually fun! The details are so eerie, so bizarre, and ultimately so breathtaking, that they seem like science fiction. Yet, time dilation rests on a simple set of real-world conditions, so concrete that they can be grasped with just the slightest use of elementary mathematics.

We’ll get into the nitty-gritty of time dilation in the next blog. Today, I just wanted to introduce you to what it is I’m going to be writing about, and why. I’d really like the blog to be an interactive activity because, well, isn’t that the point of blogging? So, the question is, are you willing to be interactive, too? Are you ready to take me to task in the comments section as soon as you hit a section or an explanation that’s too dense to understand, so that I can address the confusion and keep you from being left behind? Are you ready to guess what the solution is to the little mystery or conundrum that I’ll pose at the end of each blog (and then answer in the next)? Ok, then. To kick things off, I’d love to know: have you ever given Albert Einstein’s scientific contributions any serious thought? To what his scientific contributions actually were, I mean, and to what he actually discovered? Go ahead, blog readers. Share away!