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ESOF: The magic of science

Last night Alison Abbott, Nature´s senior European correspondent, arranged to take a group of us to see Metamagicum, a show that blends magic with science.

Sound impossible? Well, just imagine a tall German man dressed as a top quark and dancing. Or deriving the equation E=mc2 with a mathematical reference to Munich´s Späten brewery. Read more about Thomas Fraps and Pit Hartling, the men behind Metamagicum, at http://www.metamagicum.com - don´t miss the link to Alison´s excellent feature about them.

After the show, Phil Campbell -- Nature´s editor-in-chief -- showed off a card trick or two of his own. Who knew...

Posted by Alex Witze on July 19, 2006 02:50 PM |

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EINSTEINIANS AS CONVULSIONISTS

The miraculous corollary of Einstein's false principle of constancy of the speed of light - length contraction - allows Einsteinians to see through opaque bodies: see Problem 7 ("Seeing behind the stick"), p. 47 (solution on p. 54), in

http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~phys16/Textbook/ch10.pdf

Seeing through the opaque stick is exciting but Einsteinians experience something even more exciting. After having moved towards the wall the rear end of the stick starts moving backward from the wall in an attempt to restore the proper length of the stick. Einsteinians do see that backward movement and ask questions: What is its speed? What is its energy? Sometimes Einsteinians believe the energy of the backward movement of the rear end is infinite. If it were not, they argue, some pawl would be able to prevent the stick from restoring its proper length but no, no, nothing can prevent the stick from restoring its proper length. Therefore in its backward movement the rear end of the stick is able to break ANY pawl.

So much excitement makes Einsteinians go into convulsions. Spasms are regularly interrupted by ecstatic singing. "Divine Einstein" fills the space:

http://www.haverford.edu/physics-astro/songs/divine.htm

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com

Posted by: Pentcho Valev | January 11, 2007 01:23 PM

thanx

Posted by: kasim | January 17, 2007 01:09 PM

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