Physics Genius or Pseudoscience
I´m calling upon Tim and Brian to confirm my theory. I know nothing about physics, but I think I may have come up with something after straining my brain last night trying to remember my semester studying the nature of light.
Yesterday we went to a beautiful beach where I proceeded to get sunburnt. Not burnt...scorched...incinerated. I wore sunscreen and reapplied like a madman. We all got burnt, but me more than my three companions. I´ve determined that it´s because I spent more time in the water because light travels slower in water, and because wavelength is equal to speed over frequency, meaning that wavelength is proportional to speed. So if it travels more slowly in water it has a smaller wavelength, thus making the UV rays even smaller and more dangerous to my skin resulting in my neon pink hide which I am now donning. It´s not so bad. I´ve been worse, but I´m totally scorched. Blech.
Anyhoo, today I leave Valencia for Madrid. That´s fun. I´ll be spending the fourth in another nation´s capital. Yayhoo. No hillbilly fireworks, thank god.
Also, where´s Beulah? Apparently she´s settled down now, which is good, but the sniper-like random comments were a little confusing. Good to know camp is well.
Over and Out. Tim I´ll let you know when I plan to arrive in Boston. Probably around midnight, but not sure.
posted by Bacchus Americanus @ 8:20 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
You burned because water acts as a magnifying glass? Also because you are a pasty white boy.
What do you mean random sniper comments? I'm trying to be regular. I have a bit more of a routine now so I can get online more regularly, but camp tends to suppress my ability to verbalize. Awesome. Nice. Sweet. Etc. Also all my co-workers are Brits so I'm picking up a new syntax.
Over and out, have a safe trip home.
It wasn´t meant as a slight, it was just kind of like Where´s Waldo? Where´s Ingrid? Oh, there´s Ingrid. Wait, now she´s gone. Turn the page...Where´s Ingrid?
And yes, I am a pasty white boy, but I was slightly tan, and I still burned horribly. More on this later.
The speed of light through a medium is not the same as the speed of light through a vacuum. Relativity says that nothing can exceed the speed of light in a vacuum.
Sorry, I didn't really read what you wrote. Yeah, the wavelength does change. The blueshift is not really that large, though, and in either case, it's irrelevant. More importantly, recall that the energy a photon carries is E=hf=hc/l, where in any case E is constant. Recall that the reason that electromagnetic radiation can hurt you is because of the energy it carries. The reason that gamma particles have more energy than radio waves is because, at the same speed, the frequency and thus the energy of the gamma particle is higher. Because we must have E=hf, the speed of light and the wavelength decrease proportionally. That's what causes the blueshift. Yet these particles must have the same energy to be bound by the laws of thermodynamics. Otherwise it would make sense to put solar panels under water. I say pseudoscience.
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