Sunday, March 06, 2011

Today I learned...

...that I am currently travelling at the speed of light. In fact, all objects in the universe are travelling at exactly the same speed. Although I am travelling slowly in the three spatial dimensions, I am travelling quickly in the time dimension. The combined speed of any object through the four spacetime dimensions is exactly the same. Light travels completely in the three spatial dimensions and doesn't travel at all through time. Photons never age. This also explains why we can't travel faster than the speed of light.

I am quite surprised I didn't learn this fact earlier in life. I somehow managed to make it through physics and astronomy classes learning about Einstein's relativity without ever making this simple connection!

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