Like basically everyone else, I didn't really get the reading like at all. What really lost me is when it started talking about how you can never reach the speed of light. If that's the case, how can light reach the speed of light? And how did they figure that out since normal mathematics says .5 + .5 is 1?
What I got out of the whole thing is that studying what light is and how it moves really changed the way we think about the entire universe. Like with the ether and the whole 4 dimensions thing. That's like mind-blowing. And I bet it was mind-blowing for the scientists too.
Next time I show up to class late (which will most likely be tomorrow, as per usual), I will be disappointed if nobody makes a "tardon" joke.
Anyway. I feel like I have more general confusion than specific questions--I've heard of almost all of this stuff before, and I know we're not necessarily supposed to fully comprehend it (did all those physicists even fully comprehend their own work? It sounded like some of them didn't). But I feel like my head is filled with a cloud of question marks and it is absolutely going to keep me up late thinking about time travel and mirrors and wave-particle hybrids...
A few specific questions I do have, though:
- Can we go over those rotating mirror experiments in class? I think a diagram would be more helpful than the text was.
- Why is the speed of light, c, the peak of that analogous energy/speed/time/space mountain? Why is it the turning point of the motion of the universe, requiring more energy than any other possible speed (faster or slower)?
- Is there any other physical entity that resembles the half-wave, half-particle behavior of photons?
Joined: 31 Mar 2014 Posts: 9 Location: United States
Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2014 12:43 am Post subject:
I would just like to start out by saying that this was posted before 11:00 in LA time
So Einstein’s theory of relativity has definitely changed how we think of science today and forever. The general theory of relativity, E=mc^2, is one the base theory for all physics today and many other types of sciences. He tells us that movement can only be measured relative to yourself. On of the other major things that he realized was that nothing could ever catch up to the speed of light nor could anything ever slow down from the speed of light. These things give us great insight in to how we can go about observing things. It also helps us depict what is true and what is misleading.
I agree with Rachel when she says that at this time part of science seems to be shifting from experimentation and observation to more theoretical and thought based science. This is something that Einstein was particularly good at. However, it can be really difficult to prove some of these more theoretical sciences.
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