Final answer:
The theory of special relativity, established by Einstein, explains the effects of high speed on time, mass, and distance, introducing concepts like time dilation and length contraction.
Step-by-step explanation:
The theory of special relativity, developed by Albert Einstein in 1905, explains how time, mass, and distance work for objects that are moving at speeds close to the speed of light. It revolutionized our understanding by establishing that space and time are not absolute and that they change in relation to the speed of an observer. One of the theory's key predictions is time dilation, which is the stretching of time as seen by an observer in motion relative to a stationary observer. This concept, along with the limit on an object's speed, also results in length contraction, where the length of an object appears to contract when it is moving at high speeds relative to an observer.
Einstein's theory of general relativity further expanded on these ideas to include the effect of gravity on space and time, which leads to phenomena such as gravitational lensing and the prediction of black holes.