Posted on 11/12/2009 7:51:26 AM PST by LibWhacker
People who think science is dull are wrong. Here are 10 reasons why.
Physics is weird. There is no denying that. Particles that dont exist except as probabilities; time that changes according to how fast youre moving; cats that are both alive and dead until you open a box.
Weve put together a collection of 10 of the strangest facts we can find, with the kind help of cosmologist and writer Marcus Chown, author of We Need To Talk About Kelvin, and an assortment of Twitter users.
The humanities-graduate writer of this piece would like to stress that this is his work, so any glaring factual errors he has included are his own as well. If you spot any, feel free to point them out in the comment box below.
Equally, if you feel weve missed any of your favourite physics weirdnesses off the list, do tell us that as well.
If the Sun were made of bananas, it would be just as hot
[*Snip*]
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The mass / speed relationship holds at ludicrus speeds. It has been tested and Einstein was right.
Tachyons are the fanciful faster-than-light particles.
You want weird?
If you move slowly enough, the double-slit experiment will work regarding you going thru two doors.
Hmmm, interesting. That may be true, I don't know. However, I'm pretty sure we only see relativistic effects when something with mass approaches the speed of light in a vacuum.
True; relativistic effects involve relative (!) speeds of ~300,000 km/s. Only massless things can move _at_ that speed. Nothing moves faster.
As observed in water-based nuclear reactors (glowing-blue photo in original article), if light is slowed by traversing some medium, some things may be able to move faster than light _in_that_medium_. This does _not_ violate relativity, as it’s the ~300,000 km/s that matters, not the slowed light. When something does manage to go faster than medium-slowed light, there may be an effect akin to a sonic boom (thing making the noise is moving faster than the sound itself; likewise, thing making the light is moving faster than the light in that medium).
Kinda weird.
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