Relativity

The speed limit of the universe is slightly faster than my hybrid engine can carry the heap of metal attached to it down the highway.  However, whether I happened to be standing still (of course, relative to the ground underneath, but not to the spinning earth hurling through space, and the solar system moving within the band of the Milky Way, and the galaxy moving relative to other galaxies, and the very fabric of space being stretched itself)…nonetheless, if I happened to be standing relatively still compared to having rocket fuel jolt me into space around 16,000 mph I would still measure light moving at the same speed relative to me – that, in a nutshell (or in a photon packet), special relativity.  This does lead to some very interesting paradoxes, the ‘twin paradox’ being among the classics, with one twin traveling near the speed of light away from the earth and returning to find his twin aged less than he.  Thankfully, Lorentz and his contractions produced a mathematical baby that helped solve this seeming paradox.  What is perhaps more mind-boggling about the whole scandal is that some extrapolate the inherent implications of the physics of relativity to the realm of metaphysics.  But if “everything is relative” then at least something is objective…the phrase “everything is relative” would be one objective statement in that system, which of course implodes on itself.  It seems that we fancy some things being objective after all.  Keeping with the physics theme, we like the constants of physics, that hold the fabric of the universe together in a physical sense, just they way they are.  Change one, and things not only get dicey, they get non-existent.  And there are dozens of these constants, balanced on a razor (or sliver, or wafer, or whatever came next in the thinner-the-better Motorola mobile phone series) edge.  Maybe it’s not so egotistical to say that the universe seems to be anthropomorphically designed after all!