A lesson physics students can learn from Einstein.

Time seemed obvious until Einstein asked what it meant for two distant events to happen simultaneously. In his 1905 paper on special relativity, he showed that comparing time at different locations requires synchronized clocks, and that observers moving relative to one another do not generally agree on which distant events are simultaneous.

For a physics student, the lesson is to examine the physical meaning behind every symbol instead of manipulating equations blindly. For everyone else, it means that familiar ideas are not necessarily well understood. Sometimes progress begins with a question that sounds almost childish.

Einstein taught us to question what appears obvious.

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