Category Archives: Light

To Stretch or Not To Stretch

Posted on February 1, 2013 by ibrahim2016

Physics has the distinction of hosting the one of the weirdest concept hierarchies  Don’t get me wrong: physics is beautiful in its intricate connections. But sometimes, especially in the case of modern physics, one feels something like: So, most of us know about special relativity. A quick summary for the unfortunate: Special relativity establishes the speed […] Continue reading →

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Expansion of the Universe

Posted on January 28, 2013 by JT McJunkins

As Jackson mentioned here, the Universe is expanding fast enough that our observable universe is around 93 billion light years in diameter. This was initially pretty confusing to me, as I thought it impossible to see something 45 billion lightyears &#8… Continue reading →

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Light-Years: The Key to the Past

Posted on January 28, 2013 by werdercj

Speed of light: 300,000 km/second One topic I’ve found particularly interesting to read and think about is the speed of light and its implications.  We’ve learned that light travels at about 300,000 km/second; first off, this number alone is unfathomably large to me.  When I thought about how fast light travels, and then learned that […] Continue reading →

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Switching to Light Speed

Posted on January 27, 2013 by brendanfeeley

What is the fastest thing that Humans have ever built?  According to Aerospace Web, the fastest man-made object were the Helios probes built and launched into space to study the Sun.  These orbited the Sun in elliptical fashion, allowing them to zoom around the Sun at very high speeds.  These are said to have reached […] Continue reading →

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If Light Travelled Really Fast…

Posted on January 27, 2013 by ibrahim2016

According to prevailing theories in Physics, the speed of light, denoted by ‘c’ is a universal constant. It means that it is intrinsically related to the very nature of the universe. We exist because we are the culmination of almost fourteen billion years of conformation to this value by every single one of the atoms […] Continue reading →

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Twin Paradox

Posted on January 27, 2013 by williamcpower

One of my favorite concepts in physics is relativity, so I thought it would be fun to discuss the twin “paradox”. The twin paradox occurs when one twin travels away from earth at a speed close to the speed of light and then returns. The result is that the traveling twin returns younger than the […] Continue reading →

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The Speed of Light and Time Dilation

Posted on January 27, 2013 by kevinm387

Relativity is probably the most interesting area of physics in my opinion, and this video does a great job of succinctly explaining the concept of time dilation. To summarize, objects moving at speeds close to the speed of light experience time more slowly from the perspective of a stationary observer because the speed of light […] Continue reading →

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The Unseen Universe

Posted on January 27, 2013 by indianwm

The size of the Universe is one of the most amazing topics that is brought up through astronomy. The universe is so large that we are able to look back billions of years to see the beginning of time. As we look back in time, we are able to discover the different changes that occurred to form […] Continue reading →

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A Light Perspective

Posted on January 27, 2013 by wherrysg

Source The fact that I have been unable to truly grasp the size of the universe–much less be able to put into perspective things like the speed of sound and light–I believe is largely attributed to this topic (Astronomy) involving surreal and almost unimaginable concepts. Much of my experience with the concept of the speed […] Continue reading →

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Why does the moon look red?

Posted on January 27, 2013 by fathomingthestars

If you have ever seen an image of a lunar eclipse, or have had the privilege of viewing one in person, you probably noticed that the moon does not retain its bright, whitish color; instead, the moon turns a shade of orange or red.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, this very cool youtube video […] Continue reading →

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