How has e=mc2 affected you?
I don’t know if I know how to answer this question. We are all affected by the discovery of E = mc2 in the most obvious ways. I wonder more about how we might have not been affected. What would our world be like today if Einstein hadn’t made the discovery of the equation? What would the world be like today if Oppenheimer and Feynman hadn’t taken the equation and run with it?
Is it at all possible to use the equation for beneficial purposes and resist the urge to explore the more nefarious possibilities?
If I had to think of a way that E = mc2 has affected me, I think it has to be by putting Feynman on my radar. Boy oh boy, do I wish that I had those tapes on his physics lectures with me! Regretfully, they’re in storage in Merced. I’m also wishing that I had paid a lot more attention the first time I listened to them! Feynman had a way of explaining physics that was so easy to understand.
Here’s a youtube video of Einstein discussing his theory. It’s short, but really neat to listen to him talk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC7Sg41Bp-U&feature=related
There’s also lots of videos of Feynman lecturing, though I couldn’t find his specific lecture on relativity.
How would you compare the four “forces”?
The four forces are pretty groovy, if you ask me. I don’t know that they can be “compared.” It seems to me they are totally different things, though it’s obvious the universe wouldn’t work at all if they didn’t all exist and fit together as they do. The electromagnetic force and the strong nuclear force counterbalance each other perfectly. The electromagnetic force holds the nucleus and the electrons together while the Strong force holds the nucleus itself together. Clearly, they are both necessary to maintain the structure of the atom. The weak nuclear force makes it possible for us to understand the age of, well, everything. Without that, we’d have no way to measure and prove the age of the Earth and track the development of life on it.
What is the function of gravity?
Gravity’s the thing that holds the whole system together! I love that gravity is the weakest of the forces and yet impacts literally every atom in the universe. Without it, nothing would hold together, bodies wouldn’t rotate around each other. If it were any stronger, we’d not be able to move or function as we do.
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2 comments:
i checked out your link. interesting to hear einstein's own voice. then i checked out another video on that page entitled einstein: the autism connection - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRRNeAilrnM&feature=related reminds me of my young friend joseph, diagnosed with asperger's, a milder form of autism. he makes incredibly detailed designs, drawings and working models. after learning about slavery, he designed a ship which would go back in time and rescue slaves from slave ships. it had a tube connecting the two ships and on the new ship each newly free person would have their own room, with a lock on the door to keep other people out! already engineering responses to social problems and he's only ten... maybe these are the gifts autism gives us.
Thanks for posting the link for videos of Feynman lecturing and the utube clip!
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