The 10 weirdest physics facts, from relativity to quantum physics

Telegraph ^ | 11/12/09 | Tom Chivers

[LibWhacker]

People who think science is dull are wrong. Here are 10 reasons why.

Physics is weird. There is no denying that. Particles that don’t exist except as probabilities; time that changes according to how fast you’re moving; cats that are both alive and dead until you open a box.

We’ve put together a collection of 10 of the strangest facts we can find, with the kind help of cosmologist and writer Marcus Chown, author of We Need To Talk About Kelvin, and an assortment of Twitter users.

The humanities-graduate writer of this piece would like to stress that this is his work, so any glaring factual errors he has included are his own as well. If you spot any, feel free to point them out in the comment box below.

Equally, if you feel we’ve missed any of your favourite physics weirdnesses off the list, do tell us that as well.

If the Sun were made of bananas, it would be just as hot

[*Snip*]

[ctdonath2]

The mass / speed relationship holds at ludicrus speeds. It has been tested and Einstein was right.

Tachyons are the fanciful faster-than-light particles.

You want weird?
If you move slowly enough, the double-slit experiment will work regarding you going thru two doors.

[LibWhacker]

As ctdonath2 pointed out (I hope I'm paraphrasing correctly) nothing is really faster than the speed of light if you measure it against anything else in the same medium.

Hmmm, interesting. That may be true, I don't know. However, I'm pretty sure we only see relativistic effects when something with mass approaches the speed of light in a vacuum.

[aruanan]

I think a lot of these “facts” will sound laughable 100 years from now.

A lot of them sound laughable right now. Remember when Edison was already generating power at greater than 90% efficiency, scientists were saying that it was a law of nature than no means of generating power could be more than 50% efficient and were criticizing him for being such a scientific ignoramus. Quantum physics is standing in the position of those critics of Edison. There are other ways of explaining the nature of reality than quantum physics that are demonstrable.

[ctdonath2]

True; relativistic effects involve relative (!) speeds of ~300,000 km/s. Only massless things can move _at_ that speed. Nothing moves faster.

As observed in water-based nuclear reactors (glowing-blue photo in original article), if light is slowed by traversing some medium, some things may be able to move faster than light _in_that_medium_. This does _not_ violate relativity, as it’s the ~300,000 km/s that matters, not the slowed light. When something does manage to go faster than medium-slowed light, there may be an effect akin to a sonic boom (thing making the noise is moving faster than the sound itself; likewise, thing making the light is moving faster than the light in that medium).

Kinda weird.