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Unread 12-07-2006, 23:37
KenWittlief KenWittlief is offline
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Re: The speed of light is NOT a constant?! A milestone in Physics?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tristan Lall
... So it's not as if scientists and mathematicians dreamed up these units, and one day, Einstein crunched the numbers and, magically, it worked. It was defined this way, because it's convenient....
Im not quite following you here. The units of time (seconds) distance (meters) mass (kilograms) and energy (speed^2 x mass or distance x force)... were all defined before Einstein made the connection that nuclear energy E = Mass x speed of light squared.

the established SI units had no relationship to the energy stored in the bonds between protons and neutron

but it was not necessary to balance Einsteins equation - as you said, K = 1

how did the speed of light just happen to fit the equation perfectly, so it was not E= 1.2783729832987 * MC^2 ? or some other correction constant?

Thats the part that blows my mind!

The established SI units were more or less arbitrary. A second is proportioal to the rotation of the earth on its axis - a meter is about the distance from someones nose to their fingertip, a kilogram is about one cubic centimeter of something or other.... so how did those arbitrary units come out perfect for nuclear energy?

Last edited by KenWittlief : 13-07-2006 at 08:19.
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