General relativity explained

Cool news from the Seattle Astronomical Society, which just announced that the program for its April meeting will be a talk by Dr. Jeffrey Bennett, author of What Is Relativity?: An Intuitive Introduction to Einstein’s Ideas, and Why They Matter (Columbia University Press, 2014).

Bennett has spent much of the last 30 years at the University of Colorado, where he remains an adjunct research associate with the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy. These days he is mainly a writer and he has embarked on a “Relativity Tour” this year, celebrating the centennial of Einstein’s revolutionary ideas. Bennett’s basic premise is that general relativity is not all that difficult to grasp, and his goal is to bring relativity out of the realm of obscure science and help us understand it and the impact it has on our lives.

Oddly enough, it appears that my cats understand relativity. Followers of the Seattle Astronomy Facebook page recently saw the photo below of their demonstration. People trying to help others understand general relativity often ask them to imagine a bowling ball on a bed sheet. In this case Archie and Theodolinda used themselves as the massive objects, and the down comforter represents space-time. The green object in the background may be Neptune.

Bennett’s explanation may not be simple enough for cats to understand, but it is advertised as suitable for anyone from middle school on up. Bennett has taught young kids, and in addition to scholarly textbooks and science tomes for adults, he has written a series of children’s books featuring the outer space adventures of Max the dog. To gear up in advance of the talk pick up What Is Relativity? by clicking this link or the photo above. Links to Bennett’s other books are below.

The Seattle Astronomical Society talk will be at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 15 in room A102 in the Physics/Astronomy Building at the University of Washington in Seattle. In addition to SAS, the Relativity Tour is sponsored by Big Kid Science, Columbia University Press, Fiske Planetarium, and Story Time From Space.

More materials

Jeffrey Bennett website

Books by Bennett