What is Digg?81 Comments
- ThinkBox, on 10/11/2007, -3/+73I just timed a photon... 7 times around the world in a second.. that was fast... but well I could have looked at the wrong photon the last time around, but im pretty sure im right, I colored it purple....
- rald84, on 10/11/2007, -0/+42a degree in physics makes a person think in odd ways ...
- Stachzilla, on 10/11/2007, -0/+37I don't think Christians are going to come in here and complain about the speed of light, drgkstep.
"...and yay on the 2nd day, God said 'full power to the engines', and there was Light-speed, and it was good." - BLyn, on 10/11/2007, -0/+34It's articles like this that make me respond to standard "how was your weekend" questions that come on mondays nothing more than "good" and a quick change of topic.
- ThinkBox, on 10/11/2007, -4/+34shot in the dark here... but im to guess you either commented in the wrong place, or you are sick and tired of Christians doubting the speed of light..
Somebody's bitter.... - mighty_mouth, on 10/11/2007, -1/+30This is by far the coolest thing I have seen all day
- harlowsmonkeys, on 10/11/2007, -0/+28This reminds me of when my optics professor at Caltech announced we were going to measure the speed of light in class one day, and pulled a small ruler out of his shirt pocket. We laughed. He then set the ruler on a table, and shone a laser on it, so that the light reflected off the ruler onto the blackboard. The ruler had raised lines every 1/32nd of an inch. That caused a diffraction pattern on the blackboard. He marked the pattern with chalk, then used the ruler to measure the distance to the board, and the separation of the fringes on the diffraction pattern. From that, and the known frequency of the laser, the speed of light can be calculated.
Like the method in the submitted article, there is a catch here. It depends on known the frequency of your source. If you work back, you'll almost certainly find that whoever determined the frequency of the source used the speed of light in that determination, and so neither my professor's little demo, or the kitchen experiment, actually determine the speed of light. They just determine what the people who measured the frequency thought the speed of light was. - rebotfc, on 10/11/2007, -1/+29The speed of light is by definition the velocity of Chuck Norris's fist.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -4/+32i heard the iphone can measure the speed of light directly, no need for the microwave
/runs away - Murphious, on 10/11/2007, -4/+24What makes a person go "Hey! Wonder if I can measure the speed of light using a mars bar and a microwave?"
- lukasmach, on 10/11/2007, -0/+15The only problem is that the frequency written on the oven was probably estimated using (somehow, indirectly) the speed of light, so you are not really measuring, just "extracting" it from the label on the back of the microwave oven.
- FearlessFreep, on 10/11/2007, -0/+14and God said "Engage!"
- ThinkBox, on 10/11/2007, -0/+14i promised it beer
- Fracture98, on 10/11/2007, -0/+14Right or wrong, I'm more interested in how you got a photon to orbit such a small gravitational mass. ;-)
- ThinkBox, on 10/11/2007, -6/+20Also you really should stop spamming your own myspace 9/11 truther blog. nobody cares about that *****.
- AndrewJC, on 10/11/2007, -2/+16I didn't realize that there was any Christian argument AGAINST the speed of light. I certainly don't remember reading anything in the Bible that claimed it as anything at all, let alone as something contrary to what people say it is today...
- Stano, on 10/11/2007, -0/+12Is that a washing machine in his kitchen? Sure looks like one.
- mstoneburner, on 10/11/2007, -2/+13Did a Christian ***** your wife or something? You seriously need to tone down the hate. Blocked, reported as offensive.
- Fracture98, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11Your results may not be off. Google is referring to the speed of light in a vacuum. Unless you've got one of those new fangled microwaves with an airlock, the speed at your altitude will be different.
- crweaks23, on 10/11/2007, -0/+10Myth: It is possible to blow up a microwave oven by microwaving metal.
Outcome: Busted (with caveats)
Synopsis: Neither a spoon nor a fork had any effect. Tinfoil scrunched into balls caused a light-show with electric charges, but the microwave did not explode. Microwaving metal can possibly ruin a microwave by arcing against the inner wall, sending electricity back to the magnetron, and either destroying it or shortening its lifespan.
Source: Mythbusters & Wikipedia - falstaff, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8Absolutely true.
Alternative answer: He knows the speed of light, and the frequency of his microwave, then snaps a picture of a ruler over some egg whites, rounding to the nearest mm. Seriously, look at that picture. If you can pick out the "hot spot" to the nearest mm without knowing the answer ahead of time, you win life. - Majink, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8It's a Washing Machine :) extremely common to have most of your appliances in the kitchen (unless you have a dedicated utility room) here in Scotland.
- allancorbett, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8What? Don't Americans have Washing Machines in their kitchens? That's really odd. Anyway, this teacher teaches in the same school as my gf's mum...
- humperdeath, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8I didn't have any eggs, so I used a carton of "egg-beaters" fake egg whites. I poured it onto a cookie sheet and started up the microwave. After a few minutes, It was glowing allkinds of colors and almost looked like it was on fire. I took it out the metal cookie sheet to find the hot spots. There were 2 black dots on the botom, and lo and bohold, about 61 mm apart! So pretty good, but now the MW is not working anymore. watts up?
- RedLineSkis, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7You put a Metal cookie sheet in a microwave? Ahhhh.... Am I the only one seeing that is seeing what is wrong with this picture? No wonder it is not working anymore... you are lucky the thing did not catch on fire!!!! Never put anything metal in the microwave.....
- humperdeath, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Actually, he's probably a Scientologist
- skankyBacon, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5What the hell (no pun intended) are you talking about? What does this have to do with Christianity? Maybe you ought to lie down before you burst a blood vessel.
- kaskong, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5wow. drgkstep, way to use any given opportunity to lash out at somebody
- ByteGuerilla, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5It's a washing machine. Not uncommon to have a washing machine in your kitchen over here in Britain.
- NerdyNinja, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6Speed of light is roughly equivalent to how fast wife/mother/household authority figure would react to this experiment happening. Round off to the nearest 3x10^8m/s.
- shablog, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Dish dryer?
- Stumpfarmer, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Another site recommends finding your microwave hotspots by lining the bottom of the unit with thermal printing paper (the kind used by some older fax machines, for example). The paper turns blacker where it gets hotter. Haven't tried this myself...
- echo2501, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3The speed of light is EXACTLY 300,000,000 m/s!!!
nyah! - melonade, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3that's pretty cool... and you can probably say that the 0.3% error was not your fault. the actual speed of light is measured in a vacuum.
- resplence, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Wow. I'm digging you down because your humor sucks.
- Roger, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Exactly. It would be impressive if they calculated the speed of light completely from scratch.
- slayerab, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2I'm American and we have our washing machine in our kitchen, you can easily put the hose on the faucet.
- Wartz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2I'm American and my washing machine is in my kitchen. But my Grandma's washer is in her basement and my mothers washer is in a special "laundry room"
I think the location of your washer depends on your wealth. - xxTazxx, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2@ByteGuerilla
Got there first mate! Agreed, in Britain a washing machine in your kitchen is the norm, what with houses the size of thimbles. - ch33sehead, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3That's a matter of precision, not accuracy.
- markp93, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3I've read that a plain bar of chocolate works pretty well, too.
- cubeeggs, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2I wish...
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ15.html - tatung, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Using grated cheese on a plate is also good. It's really easy to see which parts melted first.
- annihilator675, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2You can also easily measure the speed of light using a flashlight, a mirror, and a stopwatch.. :)
- mercurysquad, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1no they don't
- NerdyNinja, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1You MUST be a physics major.
- Roger, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1There are two unknowns involved, the speed and the wavelength. This guy only measured one and used a predetermined value for the other.
- RyeBrye, on 10/11/2007, -3/+4His result is not 0.3% accurate - that's ludicrous. Even if he had a result only 0.0001% off of the accepted value of the speed of light, he experiment is really not that accurate.
The "accuracy" of his experiment is based on the error in your measurements - not the error from your calculated result and the accepted solution. In his case, his microwave frequency is likely NOT accurate to a single MHz (I would venture it is accurate to perhaps 5%), and his measurements of the wavelengths of the burns could be off by as much as a half centimeter.
In other words, he either got lucky - or conveniently fudged his data- to make the result this close.
The experiment would probably be a better one if he used his measurements and the known speed of light to calculate how accurate his microwave's frequency rating is.
Also - a flat hersheys bar (the kind you makes smores with) works much better than a huge damned mars bar or a bunch of marshmallows... don't know if it's better than egg whites or not - but I would suspect it is. (Yes, I've done this before - but I sure as hell didn't claim I measured c to 0.3%) - TTSkipper, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Thermal paper works really well, I learned that from the create "ball lightning" with a grape in the microwave trick.
- sadatoni, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1The wavelength of 2540MHZ is really about 122.45 mm (c/frequency), not the 1.22 mm he came up with. It's a measurement problem.
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