Light, Einstein, Relativity, Particle, Wave and blah,blah,blah...

Light has puzzled human beans from the beginning of time (except the blind) when they saw that sunlight creeps every morning to chase the dark of night away. Many stories have been made up about the primary source of our light, the sun. The sun has been deified ever since humanity discovered that sunlight could  make daing and tuyo and that it can dry clothes.

Anyway…this piece of crap is not about the sun, I am going to talk about light-the mysteries of light and how Einstein put his eggs on light. No, I did not mean that egg, what I meant is how Einstein hmmmm…made light as the constant in his relativity theory. The most famous of all equation: E=mc2 where c2 is the constant a.k.a. the speed of light (of course, ask any ordinary citizen what is c2 and they will tell you that it’s a bottled tea drink). Why light? Here’s the problem: everything is relative. What constant can be used from which to measure things? The problem is that mass and size is affected by velocity. As you go faster, you become shorter. That is why short people walk faster, or it’s the other way around. As a body goes faster, it becomes shorter and its mass increases. The problem is that the earth is in constant motion; everything is motion-no constant here.  Einstein was eating his sandwich when he saw sunlight bouncing off Niels Bohr’s bald head. Einstein was hit by the bouncing light and intuition hit him and he shouted, “Hey, light is constant.” (nnaaaa…not true)

Anyway, again, this piece of crap is not about Einstein’s relativity Theory, it’s all about light. So how is light constant? Of course we all know want constant means. We do not have to be theoretical physicist to understand that constant is something that does not change. Applied to ordinary things the word constant is relative. For example, my neighbors are constant gossipers which is true but when my neighbors die (hope not) they are not constant anymore….They become dead neighbors. The way we apply the word constant in our daily lives…I would call it the contingent constant (my blog, my term!) because it is relative to many things like time, space, mass etc. To quote Jose Mari Chan, “Life is a constant Change….rah,rah,rahhh…”

We need to find a constant becuase without a constant we could not tall a  relative truth from another relative truth. Everything is lqiuid becuase there is no solid...hmmmm...something from which things or ideas could be take shape--everyhting is moving. So, a constant from which to stand is necessary. Its like Archimedes boasting, “Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.” Scientist realized that in order to measure or state something truthfully (mathematically, theoretically and even ethically speaking) there has to be a constant! A terra firma to stand from which any explorations could be made or else, without this terra firma, we are like the fly inside a car telling his friends “look guys! I am the fastest among you!” Then the driver opened the car window and they all got sucked by the partial vacuum created by the speeding car’s velocity and they were splattered on the next car’s windshield.

Anyway, again and again, this piece of crap is not about constants, it’s about light. We may be wondering what made light a constant. What is it that made light the terra firma of theoretical physics explorations? Here we go into the realms of the metaphysics. The spiritual and the mysterious realm of reality where our common sense will leave us begging cursing, what the…..

What the… what’s matter anti-matter?

Let us first explore the nature of light. There were many speculations about the nature of light. Some have proposed theories about the nature light that seemed reasonable because of the lack of sophisticated equipment, they were refuted and debunked. Anyways…let us leave the heavy stuff to Wikipedia and other sites…Some says light are particles--whatever they are called (electrons or phtons etc.). Imagine sand or buhangin, imagine that every time you turn a flashlight there are billions of tiny glowing sands that flies out of your flash light giving illumination. This is true because light gives off particle energy. Light particles can be detected bouncing off things the fancy name for this phenomenon is the photoelectric effect. This is observable in solar panels. Heee…getting heavy…but unfortunately the particle theory is wrong or may just be incomplete. One simple experiment that made the particle theory inadequate or (wrong) is the flashlight experiment. Take two flashlights; turn it on, cross their beams. If the particle theory is correct, that light is composed of particles…there would be a detectable disruption or distortions… but there is none…To show the point of experiment more clearly: hold two water hoses, turn them on, and cross their squirt the water and cross them, there is disruptions because water molecules are getting in each other’s way. The same with light, if light is particle then these particles should bump into each other creating disruptions and distortions.

Another theory of light is the wave theory. Light is compared to sound. It has no particles but it emits waves. But the problem is…if light is like sound. It needs a medum to travel or to for a conductor. Here on earth, the theory holds because we have air to conduct sound and light. But what about light in vacuum? We all know that the light from the sun travels gazillion of miles in vacuum to reach earth. So, defenders of this theory proposed a medium called the lumineferous ether that conducts light everywhere…unfortunately…up to now…the lumineferous is still in the dark. No one has proved that it exist and is now considered one of those hypothesis meant to support another theory….does not work that way (Occam’s razor).

So a third theory was proposed the wave-particle theory. Basically it’s the combination of both particle and wave theory-ha, pretty obvious. The two slits experiment proved this.

Ayaw ko na….tuuloy ko na lang tomorrow maglalaba pa kami ni myra…nagagalit na na! Panay daw ang type ko! Ano daw ang ginagagawa ko! Bye.

Just listen to Dr. Quantum explain this experiment and introduce you to quantum paradoxes.

 Damn...I did not discuss why light is constant! Later, I will talk about it....