• Question: How would you explain relativity to a 10 year old ?

    Asked by Vlad to Ed, Kerrianne, Nina, Oli, yoyehudi on 6 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Oli Wilson

      Oli Wilson answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      Simple answer: I wouldn’t! I don’t know if I can even explain relativity to myself, let alone to someone else! I remember reading a Horrible Science book when I was younger that said something about moving on a train (?), and I’ve seen lots of people talk about gravity being like a stretched sheet – turns out this last one isn’t too far off for Einstein’s theory of general relativity. I still don’t think I fully understand it, but this seems like a pretty good explanation of it (and it was the only one that was quick enough I was willing to sit through!) https://youtu.be/fEZupmpTcOU?t=49s

    • Photo: Kerrianne Harrington

      Kerrianne Harrington answered on 7 Nov 2017:

      My dad tried to do this to me when I was a kid! I don’t know if I was ten, but I was definitely younger than 12. He tried to explain it in terms of trains, which is where we were at the time. All I remember is being incredibly skeptical and confused!

      At ten, I would probably skip the trains, which are supposed to represent frames of reference. It would be easy to get confused by lots of new terms.

      I would explain it like a stretchy sheet of elastic, with objects sat on them. The fastest any of these objects can travel has a speed limit (the speed of light), and the closer the objects get to the speed limit, the further they sink into the sheet of elastic.

      For a better attempt, I’d need to think about it more.

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