A light year from a bar of chocolate
Here's an experiment. New Scientist started me off on this, and I've added my own fun.
Measure the speed of light. How, you ask? You need:
A bar of chocolate
A microwave
A tape measure
A calculator.
OK, here goes. Remove the spinny plate from the microwave and melt the bar of chocolate for 30 seconds. Remove the chocolate bar. There should be melted chocolately dollops. Now, here's the basic rule:
speed = wavelength x frequency
You know the frequency of your microwave (it's 2.45Ghz in case you care). The dollops will be melted exactly half a wavelength apart (between the peaks and troughs bit). So measure the distance between the dollops...let's say they are 6cm apart. Double it. That's your wavelength, 12cm.
12 x 2.45Ghz, or 12 x 2,450,000,000 = 2.94 x10 to the 10 cm/s. That's not far off the actual speed of light.
So that's, what, 294,000,000 m/s. Or 18,3750 miles per second. Nippy little bugger, that light.
It gets better, though! How fast can I send smutty excerpts of porn to Hannah in Florida? Florida is 4,300 miles away. Now, if I had a fibre optic cable, I could send my smut to her in 0.04 seconds. Because of how fibre optics works, the light travels double the distance (8,600 miles).
Speed = distance/ time
We have speed. We have distance. So time = distance / speed... or: 8600/183750 = 0.04 seconds. Now that's what I call service.
More? You want more? OK, how about a light year.
speed = distance/time
speed = 183750 miles per second. Time = 60 x 60 x 24 x 365.25 (for leap years) = 31,557,600 seconds.
Screw that. Let's times 183750 by 3600 to get miles per hour. That's 661500000 and 8766 hours in a year.
So 5,800,000,000,000 miles is a light year, I guess. And the best thing? It's actually 5,880,000,000,000 miles. So thank you, wonderful bar of chocolate, for teaching me the workings of the universe.
Measure the speed of light. How, you ask? You need:
A bar of chocolate
A microwave
A tape measure
A calculator.
OK, here goes. Remove the spinny plate from the microwave and melt the bar of chocolate for 30 seconds. Remove the chocolate bar. There should be melted chocolately dollops. Now, here's the basic rule:
speed = wavelength x frequency
You know the frequency of your microwave (it's 2.45Ghz in case you care). The dollops will be melted exactly half a wavelength apart (between the peaks and troughs bit). So measure the distance between the dollops...let's say they are 6cm apart. Double it. That's your wavelength, 12cm.
12 x 2.45Ghz, or 12 x 2,450,000,000 = 2.94 x10 to the 10 cm/s. That's not far off the actual speed of light.
So that's, what, 294,000,000 m/s. Or 18,3750 miles per second. Nippy little bugger, that light.
It gets better, though! How fast can I send smutty excerpts of porn to Hannah in Florida? Florida is 4,300 miles away. Now, if I had a fibre optic cable, I could send my smut to her in 0.04 seconds. Because of how fibre optics works, the light travels double the distance (8,600 miles).
Speed = distance/ time
We have speed. We have distance. So time = distance / speed... or: 8600/183750 = 0.04 seconds. Now that's what I call service.
More? You want more? OK, how about a light year.
speed = distance/time
speed = 183750 miles per second. Time = 60 x 60 x 24 x 365.25 (for leap years) = 31,557,600 seconds.
Screw that. Let's times 183750 by 3600 to get miles per hour. That's 661500000 and 8766 hours in a year.
So 5,800,000,000,000 miles is a light year, I guess. And the best thing? It's actually 5,880,000,000,000 miles. So thank you, wonderful bar of chocolate, for teaching me the workings of the universe.