CBSE Class 10 Answered

Special relativity is a theory of the structure of spacetime. It was introduced in Albert Einstein's 1905 paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies". Special relativity is based on two postulates which are contradictory in classical mechanics:

1. The laws of physics are the same for all observers in uniform motion relative to one another (Galileo's principle of relativity),
2. The speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers, regardless of their relative motion or of the motion of the source of the light.

The resultant theory has many surprising consequences. Some of these are:

• Time dilation: Moving clocks are measured to tick more slowly than an observer's "stationary" clock.
• Length contraction: Objects are measured to be shortened in the direction that they are moving with respect to the observer.
• Relativity of simultaneity: two events that appear simultaneous to an observer A will not be simultaneous to an observer B if B is moving with respect to A.
• Mass-energy equivalence: E = mc², energy and mass are equivalent and transmutable.

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