The Elegant Universe - Post 2

      Brian Greene explains the idea of relativity, as put forth by Einstein.  In 1905, he realized that all movement in the universe is relative to a stationary observer.  The concept is explained by Stephen Hawking by using the analogy of a moving train.  To an observer at the station, the train appears to move at x miles per hour.  For the person on the train, the station appears to move at x miles per hour.  This concept led Einstein to believe that there is no truly simultaneous observer.  In unifying space and time, he discovered that time is experienced slower to the moving observer than it is to the stationary observer.  This concept caused me to wonder about a dilemma known as the twin paradox, which I later researched.  The twin paradox poses the situation of a pair of twins, one pilots a rocket ship at near light speed, the other remains stationary.  According to time dilation, the twin moving at near light speed would have experienced time much more slowly, and thus aged very little, while the stationary twin aged normally.  However, according to relativity, both twins are moving at near light speed, depending on the observer.  The resolution of the paradox, lies in a technicality.  It does prove however, that the concept of relativity is extremely counter intuitive.