Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

quantities must be adjusted, as well. The only way for them
to remain the same going in and coming out is for the mass to
change in order to compensate for the way velocity changes.
As a result, the faster you go, the heavier you get. As you
measured by someone at rest.
This means that there is a lowest mass (the rest mass) that is
measured in the frame in which the thing is at rest. A shocking
result of this is that mass becomes seen as a form of energy.
This is summed up in the most famous equation in all of
science, Emc 2 : The amount of energy pent up in a massive
object is equal to the mass of the object multiplied by the
square of the speed of light.
We now see another reason that nothing can move faster than
the speed of light. As something gets heavier, it needs more of a
push to accelerate it. But at the speed of light, its mass becomes
traveling faster than the speed of light is not an engineering
that, according to Einstein’s theory, cannot be done.
In 1908, Hermann Minkowski, Einstein’s professor, gave a speech
entitled “Space and Time,” in which he set out what we now call
the geometric interpretation of the special theory of relativity. In
this speech, Minkowski said, “Henceforth space by itself, and time
by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a
kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.” With
Minkowski’s interpretation, Einstein realized that we live in a fourdimensional
universe.
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