Understanding very complicated science is not everyone’s cup of tea, but who says that science has to be so complicated? We all have had at least one teacher in our lives who was very learned, and you could tell how good they were at their subject, except they were not good at teaching so well. You may be able to understand things well, but you are not always capable of explaining them as good as that.
The art of teaching comes naturally to some people, and the 18-year-old Ryan Chester seems to be one of those. Einstein’s theory of relativity sounds super complicated but the way Chester has explained it, you may begin to think of it as a 5th-grade science. Einstein published his two postulate theory in 1905 as it reads:
- The Principle of Relativity – All the laws of physics are the same in all inertial reference frames –
No preferred inertial frame exists. - The Principle of the Constancy of the Speed of Light – the speed of light in free space has the
same value c, in all inertial frames, regardless of the velocity of the observer or the velocity of the
source emitting the light.
Chester explains the first postulate using a bowl of popcorn in his backyard and then the same in a moving car.
Before Einstein put forward the theory, it was believed that light also travels through a medium called ether, just like sound travels through matter. The video gives a very simplistic understanding of how the world would work if light actually did travel through a medium or ether.
Ryan bagged scholarships worth US$400,000 and US$250,000, getting to the top from 2,000 other applicants, only 15 of which made it to the finalists. Looking at Ryan Chester explain the seemingly complicated theory of relativity so well has inspired many others to be interested in science.
Watch the amazing video by Ryan Chester for yourself:
