Webcast on Relativity

November 30, 2005 10:36 AM

Beyond Einstein - "A 12-hour webcast on Einstein's Theory of Relativity... and beyond."
posted by Gyan (7 comments total)

But if you can accelerate the wbcast to 99% of the speed of light, you (at rest relative to the webcast) can watch it for 85 hours:

t = t₀ / ( 1 - v²/c² )^(1/2)

posted by orthogonality at 11:11 AM on November 30, 2005

The copy on the site is kind of wierd:

Einstein's theories had a major impact on science in the 20th century and continue shape investigations in physics ad cosmology. Our special guest will be SLAC Theoretical physicist Stephon Alexander, who will join us with activities and conversations about the impact of Einstein's theories in the twentieth century and the way they continue to shape physics. This handsome and charismatic physicist will talk about the problem of reconciling the world Einstein described to the mysterious quantum world. Exploratorium Staff Scientist Paul Doherty explaining Einsteins theories in a way everyone can understand.
posted by vacapinta at 11:14 AM on November 30, 2005

What's weird about being handsome and charismatic? People were known to describe Einstein in that way...
posted by xinit at 11:50 AM on November 30, 2005

This handsome and charismatic physicist

For the ladies... grrrrowl.
posted by cleverusername at 12:29 PM on November 30, 2005

I don't like the wording on the splash page; it makes it look like Einstein just came up with relativity out of thin air when he was working on the same thing a lot of people were working on at the time. Science is additive and collaborative, and the idea of the lone genius is detrimental to the development of future scientists.
posted by Eideteker at 2:09 PM on November 30, 2005

Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps, a book by Peter Galison, offers a good historical approach to relativity's discovery. I had had no idea that the synchronicity thought experiments involving telling time through sending electrical pulses from a master clock and then accounting for the distance travelled had grounding in actual networks of synchronized clocks.
posted by nobody at 2:42 PM on November 30, 2005

Eideteker, I agree, this Einstein cult stuff has got to stop!
posted by Chuckles at 3:28 PM on November 30, 2005