You should know some basic facts about the neutrino and about the Opera experiments.
Special relativity is like good old relativity but extended to all laws of physics not just mechanics.
From that principle and the theory of electricity, it follows that the speed of light is always the same for any moving observers.
Einstein worked consequences of this fact and they are very strange (but true!)
Time dilation: Time runs more slowly when you go fast (in order to measure the same speed of light)
Length Contraction: lengths get shorter when you go fast
Mass increases when you go fast (from the book)
Mass and energy are one and the same.
The formula for energy is E^2 = m^2 c^4 + p^2 c^2
. If you have no momentum (i.e., if you are not moving and p=0
) then this is just the famous formula E = mc^2
.
c is the symbol for the speed of light in vacuum. c = 299,792,458 \ m/s