
The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less - gjm11
http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/txt/al.html
======
shardling
>Say you woke up one day and your bed was gone. Your room, too. Gone. It's all
gone. You wake up in an inky void. Not even a star. Okay, yes, it's a dumb
idea, but just go with it. Now say you want to know if you move or not. Are
you held fast in one spot? Or do you, say, list off to the left some? What I
want to ask you is: Can you find out? Hell no. You can see that, sure. You
don't need me to tell you. To move, you have to move to or away from ... well,
from what? You'd have to say that you don't even get to use a word like "move"
when you are the only body in that void.

This is not as self-evident as the author believes.

1\. Having taught a great many college level physics students, they have
trouble grasping this.

2\. More importantly, there's a _reason_ people pursued the theory of the
aether for so long -- you have to actually do the fucking experiments to show
that there's no absolute reference frame you could be said to be moving in.
Thinking that you can deduce physical facts about the universe _a priori_ is
the opposite of science.

 _e:_ Suddenly remembered a Feynman bit from _Lectures_ where he talks about
_exactly_ the attitude of treating this is somehow obvious:
[http://www.sciencechatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=207...](http://www.sciencechatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=20750)

~~~
Cushman
Exactly my thought reading that. That question, "Can you find out? Hell no,"
_is_ relativity in a nutshell. If you really grasp what that means, the whole
deal from simultaneity to time dilation to curved spacetime all falls out more
or less intuitively. (Of course it was harder to work out the _first_ time :P)

Most people implicitly believe that there _must_ be some privileged reference
frame, if not _mine_ necessarily than at least one very close to mine, and for
good reason. (I'd go so far as to say that most people believe _explicitly_
that there is a privileged reference frame, and that it is an intelligent
agent called God, but leave that alone for now.) Even if they do get past this
statement with a, "Uh, okay, I guess so..." they probably have not actually
adjusted their entire world view to account for that powerful fact, and if
they seem to understand what you have told them it is likely that they have
simply memorized the right answer.

Not that there's anything wrong with trying.

~~~
ars
> I'd go so far as to say that most people believe explicitly that there is a
> privileged reference frame, and that it is an intelligent agent called God

????? Why do you assume God is a physical being inside the universe? (Do
people really think that?) God created the universe - God is outside it. Like
God is the computer and the universe is the program.

God isn't at rest/not at rest. The concept doesn't even apply.

~~~
chc
Most people do not think it through that way. They probably don't think God is
a physical being, and they probably don't have a very specific idea about his
location, but they definitely think he is viewing the universe, wherever he
is.

~~~
ars
Fine, but if he's viewing the universe he is not inside the universe - i.e. he
doesn't have a reference frame.

~~~
chc
This is your assertion, not theirs.

------
nlh
Interesting read and I like the concept, but I think the 4-letter rule added
an arbitrary constraint that didn't necessarily make it easier to read or
understand.

If the idea was "explain relativity simply" then it could have been done
better -- word complexity (ie "reading level") is a better measure than
outright word length.

If the idea was simply to see if it could be done with 4-letter words, well,
mission accomplished :)

~~~
breadbox
It was in fact the latter.

(I was inspired in part by Douglas Hofstadter, who did something similar on a
smaller scale in "Le Ton Beau de Marot".)

~~~
derekp7
Sounds very similar to Guy Steel's "Growing a Language" talk. His constraint
was to not use any word greater than one syllable unless it is defined by
either one-syllable words, or other words that had been previously defined.

~~~
dpritchett
That really is a great talk! It's on Youtube too:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ahvzDzKdB0>

------
dpritchett
The Up-Goer Five Text Editor is a pretty great resource with similar
constraints: "Can you describe a topic using only the thousand most common
English words?"

The results in their Hall of Fame are fascinating. It's inspired by the xkcd
linked elsewhere in this thread.

<http://splasho.com/upgoer5/halloffame.php>

------
darxius
I found that four letters added some ambiguity and some uneeded complexity.
Maybe 5 or even 6 letters?

Still, this is a great intro to relativity and it was a fun read. Also a cool
literary feat.

~~~
dnautics
I find the fuzzing of proper names gets annoying, and it would be better if
the rule were relaxed for proper names.

~~~
alexdowad
Personally, I found the abbreviated names made the piece even more hilariously
irreverent than it already was. "Izzy" for Isaac Newton? Makes him sound like
an 1980's heavy metal star or something.

------
haliax
This is phenomenal, does anyone have sources of more physics concepts
explained simply?

Scott Aaronson's Quantum Physics is one:
<http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec9.html>

~~~
chengsun
Obligatory xkcd: <http://xkcd.com/1133/>

~~~
saraid216
I want to point out that xkcd's criteria for usable words is a lot better than
"four letters or less". There are some really obscure, yet very dense words
out there.

------
boburhedRAGTOP
I know I'm dumb, but can someone explain this part?

"Dana sees each rock at the same time, but Bert sees one rock and then sees
the next rock."

How would anyone's movement, or lack of it, affect their perception of whether
the rocks landed at the same time or not?

~~~
gjm11
The rays that come from each rock move only so fast. They take time to get
from the rock to Dana or Bert. And it is only by when those rays get to Dana
or Bert that they can say if they were at the same time, or one and then the
next.

Now. Bert is on the bus. It goes, let us say, from west to east on the road.
Bert is half way from the west rock to the east rock when each rock hits land
-- but he is on the move, and when the rays from the east rock hit his eyes he
has gone some way east. The rays from the west rock have not yet got to him.
Then, just a tad more time, and the rays from the west rock get to Bert's
eyes.

But Dana does not move. She sits by the road. The rays from the west rock and
the east rock hit her at the same time: each rock is, say, a yard from her,
one west and one east.

So Dana sits and does not move; she sees the rays from each rock at the same
time. Bert is on the bus, and goes from west to east; he sees the rays from
the east rock and then the rays from the west rock.

And all that is fine. They both know that Dana does not move and Bert does. So
they will say that each rock hit at the same time, for Dana (who did not move)
saw them hit at the same time.

But (and this is the bit that may fry your mind) we can just as well say that
Bert does not move and Dana does move! And then we will have to say that the
east rock hit and _then_ the west rock! How can that be?

We must say, even if you find it odd, that "did the east rock hit, then the
west? or the west, then the east? or both at once?" just goes one way for Dana
and not that way for Bert. Just like "is this rock to the east or to the
west?" may not go the same way for both, if they are not at the same site.

(You are not dumb. This is hard. It took Al to work it out!)

~~~
breadbox
Yes, you have the idea. You put down just a word or two, no more. But then you
add to it, and then some more, and then the next you know, you have a page
full of such text. It can be hard to stop once you get into it!

------
wbhart
Age restricted as inappropriate by UK filters, presumably because it contains
"four letter words". Great one O2. Nothing like restricting access by our kids
to educational material.

~~~
aendruk
It may be qualifying "she's on her ass" as inappropriate.

------
jneal
This is cool. I felt I had to keep my note the same. A very neat idea I'd say.
Wish it was more easy to read. Very cool!

~~~
205guy
I see what you did here. I had the same idea, but you beat me to it.

------
biot
Now who can describe the theory of relativity in only four words?

Similar to this: <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html>

~~~
breadbox
Everything's relative except _c_.

Best I could do.

------
GhotiFish
I made a word cloud of this

I removed "and", "you", "the", "that", "a", and "to" as those were just a bit
TOO big.

<http://i.imgur.com/77V6OvQ.png>

~~~
Raphael
Al?

~~~
GhotiFish
ALbert Einstein. I think.

------
pjdorrell
Any one of us can work out x by x plus y by y plus z by z less c by t by t
where x and y and z and t are each part of how to get from one "here and now"
to a 2nd "here and now". I can try to tell you what c is or we can just say
that it is one (i.e. c by t by t is just t by t). And the math that we do will
work out the same if I work it out from what I see or if you work it out from
what you see, even if I do not move at the same rate as you.

------
Mz
Reminds me of the story behind "The Cat in the Hat."

"In May 1954, Life magazine published a report on illiteracy among school
children, which concluded that children were not learning to read because
their books were boring. Accordingly, William Ellsworth Spaulding, the
director of the education division at Houghton Mifflin who later became its
Chairman, compiled a list of 348 words he felt were important for first-
graders to recognize and asked Geisel to cut the list to 250 words and write a
book using only those words. [33] Spaulding challenged Geisel to "bring back a
book children can't put down." [34] Nine months later, Geisel, using 236 of
the words given to him, completed The Cat in the Hat. It retained the drawing
style, verse rhythms, and all the imaginative power of Geisel's earlier works,
but because of its simplified vocabulary, it could be read by beginning
readers."

From: <http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss>

------
wfn
I've stumbled upon Brian's website before and have enjoyed many a writeup,
including this one.

I recall particularly enjoying `A Monovocalic Sonnet on Dante's "Inferno"`
(<http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/txt/infirni.html>) - the essence/joy
being in the Notes section: <http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/txt/infirni-
notes.html> \- it's so random and intense - a true hacker spirit I say :)

------
carlob
This reminds me of 'Gödel's Second Incompleteness Theorem Explained in Words
of One Syllable'

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4197284>

------
elliptic
There's an amusing though mean-spirited article of Paul Samuelson's purporting
to debunk the use of the Kelly Criterion - [url]www-
stat.wharton.upenn.edu/~steele/Courses/434F2005/Context/Kelly%20Resources/Samuelson1979.pdf[/url]
(pdf). All the words are one syllable. I find the title rather poetic - "Why
we should not make mean log of wealth big though years to act are long".

------
Jun8
"Make things as simple as possible, but not any simpler" - Einstein. His own
book from Dover is an excellent way to get started.

------
prawn
I wonder if something like this might be useful if added to Wikipedia's Simple
English version of the Theory of Relativity page? That page seems a bit
underdone right now.

<https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity>

------
pieguy
There are many interesting pages on this site. The brainf __k and Intercal
resources are a fun read, also the tiny executables. The Tile World downloads
are a bit out-of-date though.

------
jvdh
Looking at the page full of short words, the whole text just looks very weird,
strange and sometimes just distracting. I never knew that I looked over the
page so much as I was reading.

------
d0m
I'd prefer "The theory of relativity explained to four years old".. the "four
letters or less", although funny, makes it harder to grasp IMHO.

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trebor
I found the article hard to read because of the word length. It created a
strange, artificial rhythm to the text that drove me to distraction.

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Avshalom
As an explanation it's only mediocre, but it was a lovely poetic read. It felt
on the verge of lyrical the entire time.

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whatgoodisaroad
Am I being pedantic? That really should be four letters or _fewer_.

~~~
breadbox
Yes to both.

------
Nilzor
Why?

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maeon3
This article is exactly what I needed, I've been trying to understand the
unification of Gravity, Inertia and Centrifugal force for years now, couldn't
fathom it, now I can.

The best I can describe it is: "Matter is like water through a drain", I wrote
a post with my consolation of how the three can be seen as one:

[http://sentientmachine.blogspot.com/2013/05/matter-is-
like-w...](http://sentientmachine.blogspot.com/2013/05/matter-is-like-water-
through-drain.html)

