[thechat] Speed of light may have changed recently
deacon
web at master.gen.in.us
Sat Jul 3 21:34:53 CDT 2004
On 3 Jul 2004 at 14:28, Madhu Menon wrote:
> Will the physicists on this list please explain the rest of the article in
> plain English? My high-school physics is more than a decade old and hence,
> rusty. Alan?
Explain as in why or explain as in how?
Let's put it this way. Newtonian physics didn't break when Einstein
came along. It was simply defined as a special case. Physics is a
science of stepwise refinement. Nothing ever becomes wrong; we
simply learn more.
It's sorta like growing up in a small town in Ohio. You learn that some
people are Catholic and some are Protestant. Then you get older and
learn that some are Jewish. And then you get older and learn that
there are Sunni and Shiite, and Buddhist and atheist, and many, many
other variations of believers and unbelievers. Then you meet Debbie
and she takes you home when her parents are away for the weekend,
and you find out that not only are you nowhere close to having all the
answers, but you haven't even been asking the wrong questions.
Most physicists would assert that we're just discovering Sunni and
Shiite, and losing our virginity is far off. And remember, Debbie is
sweet and innocent. There's always Miranda, who isn't....
deke
who probably wouldn't last long as a high school physics teacher....
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