2959: Beam of Light

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Beam of Light

Title text: Einstein's theories solved a longstanding mystery about Mercury: Why it gets so hot. "It's because," he pointed out, "the sun is right there."

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a BOT FLYING ALONGSIDE A BEAM OF LIGHT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

Thought experiments, such as those posited by Albert Einstein to illustrate the principles of Special Relativity (that deals with the interactions between high speeds and the perceptions of time), can sometimes reveal what appear to be fundamental principles of the universe that can revolutionise scientific understanding. But it is not always so. In this comic, we find Einstein imagining the scenario that would later help to make him famous, but before any particularly profound revelations have been established. It is currently just, so to speak, a flight of fantasy.

In a similar vein, one of the long-standing issues about the orbit of Mercury is that it doesn't quite orbit the Sun in the way that Newtonian physics would suggest. We now know that this is accounted for by General Relativity, another of Einstein's suggestions (that relates the effects of gravity upon time perception), but we once more find ourselves overhearing his thoughts well before we get anywhere near any developments that we know will start to explain this, and is stuck at just 'imagining' that Mercury is hot due to its proximity to the Sun, which isn't a particularly novel or useful conclusion, or close to what we would now recognise as Einstein's much lauded theory.

The largely irrelevant (at least in any basic terms of Relativity) issue of the heat from the Sun would seem to have more relevance to the Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism, at one time proposed as the cause of the Sun's heat but superseded by the eventual discovery and understanding of nuclear fusion, or the Yarkovsky effect, in which thermal effects were shown to have an influence upon the orbital dynamics of minor bodies. Neither of these things were the focus of Einstein's own studies.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[Albert Einstein sitting on a chair, with a thought bubble above his head.]

Einstein: Nyoooooooooom!

Einstein: I'm so fast!

Einstein: Nyyooooooooom!

[Caption below the panel:]

The first few times Einstein imagined flying alongside a beam of light, he didn't have any particular insights.

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Discussion

hi 172.68.174.143 (talk) 04:37, 16 July 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Hello, could you please sign your post? OmniDoom (talk) 04:47, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

@OmniDoom: I have signed the post for them. —megan ^talk/_contribs 04:58, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

megan detected 🤩🤩🤩 172.69.43.185 07:14, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

It's just a thematic name. If you keep overreacting to it, we can do this. —megan ^talk/_contribs 07:49, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

aw hell yeah, melt the school computers i use to edit this wiki 141.101.98.110 08:10, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I totally thought it said Epstein at first, and I was trying to make sense of a seemingly dark, oblique, and dated joke.172.70.210.141 05:00, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

randall would never 172.69.43.185 07:14, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

"Up your nose with a relativistic rubber hose" - Vinnie Barbarino These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For (talk) 19:29, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I thought the "didn't have any particular" was a pun, because at the time light was not recognized as a particle but a wave. 141.101.109.167 08:34, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

thats me whenever im on a sled downhill An user who has no account yet (talk) 10:55, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

calvin? is that you? 172.71.150.196 20:07, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

If Einstein is traveling at the speed of light then he is not experiencing time so he would not be able to have any insights. KingPenguin (talk) 04:55, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

This is a gedanken experiment, and thus he could have them while contemplating going at that speed. --Kynde (talk) 10:49, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Though nowhere is it made explicit, and it probably doesn't warrant either Explanation or Transcript notes to this effect, I have a strong feeling that Albert is seated at his Patent Office desk, taking a break from reviewing patent applications (the paperwork directly in front of him). Just a thought, as it would be presumptuous to put this in as a main article edit... 172.70.91.96 12:20, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I think it could be relevant to mention. --Kynde (talk) 10:49, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I have just created the pages Albert Einstein and the Category:Comics featuring Albert Einstein as there are now three comics where Randall has drawn Albert. I have added those three. Maybe there could be more? Maybe we should also add any comic where Einstein is directly mentioned or referenced (like with the swizz patent office like in 505: A Bunch of Rocks.) Not sure though about the latter. But as said just above the patent office is a know reference. --Kynde (talk) 10:49, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

My last high school year coincided with the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. One day when our class monitor operated an infrared thermometer in a daily routine, I jokingly suggested that whoever doubts their health status move the thermometer really fast towards their forehead so that the measured value would be lowered due to blueshift. The explanation here reminded me of the story and that, alas, our monitor is talented and charming now and then, but not do I. — 物灵 (talk) 18:42, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I was the one who said Hi with no signature 108.162.245.8 04:47, 12 September 2024 (UTC)