By Nicole Trigg

Pioneer Staff

As we move into the holiday season peppered with Christmas parties, craft fairs, seasonal lights and holiday treats, everyone has the big date of December 25th on their mind.

But how many realize that November 25th is considered a momentous day as well, one that heralded in the modern renaissance, created theoretical physics and forever changed humankinds understanding of the universe?

Today, Friday, November 25th, is the 101st anniversary of the day that Albert Einstein presented his famous Theory of Relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences, which offered the startling ideas that: every time you measure an objects velocity, or its momentum (how it experiences time), its always in relation to something else (theres no absolute reference); that the speed of light is the same no matter who measures it or how fast the person measuring it is going; and that nothing can go faster than light. Basically, the Theory of Relativity introduced a new framework for all of physics and proposed new concepts of space and time, and attained Einstein international fame that has lasted more than a century.

You see this theory in action when you use GPS because the satellites are constantly moving relative to the Earth, effects predicted by Einsteins theory must be taken into account. Without compensating for relativity, GPS devices would be out by miles. So thank Albert Einstein the next time your cars GPS gets you somewhere on time. Wed be lost without him.