Erstellt am: 17. 4. 2015 - 14:52 Uhr
Today's Webtip: Riding Light
Have you ever tried to visualise speed? Or size?
When I was a kid growing up, I always tried to imagine how big a brontosaurus was. Most books tried to show that with comparisons to whales or elephants.
That never really helped since I didn't run into either of those beasts in the wilds of suburban Minnesota.
My science class once tried to explain the size of the solar system by making a scale model on the playground. It sort of helped, but it was still pretty difficult to feel the relationship.
Speed on the other hand...
As a science fiction fan the speed of light was always a thing. One of those things you know about and are aware of, but doesn't really have any practical meaning. Other than that it's really, really fast.
But I think I just found one of the best illustrations of both the size of our solar system and the speed of light. An illustration that makes one seem much slower, and the other a lot larger, while providing a sort of gut understanding that works. For me at least.
It follows the path of a photon from the Sun to Jupiter. You are going to need 45 minutes to watch the whole thing.
Riding Light from Alphonse Swinehart on Vimeo.