Cosmo 101

Ok time for some more really cool introductory concepts. Proper time. I and the author of the book we will be reading like to call it wristwatch time and it has to do with moving clocks…or watches as the case may be. So let’s go back to wolverine and deadpool in their epic battle. Let’s say that in the computer chips inside deadpool’s head he has a clock. Now this clock measures the time when the battle starts, the first event and let’s say that deadpool himself is present when the call to the army is made, event two. If that were the case then the clock inside deadpool’s head would measure wristwatch time, or proper time. Right now it’s just a vocab term but latter it will mean something more. I also wanted to tell you about the reading we did for tomorrow. It was all about gravity. So you know in high school physics how they say that gravity exerts a force on you when you fall…well all the time…but it hurts you when you fall. Well turns out that there is really no force at all…we are accelerating towards the earth due to the fact that the space around the earth is curved by it’s gravity. Here’s an experiment to illustrate. Let’s say you have working replica of Willy Wonka’s glass elevator. Now first you take it way into deep space where there are no planets or anything with a very strong gravitational pull. Now you have 4 everlasting goobstopers and you set one near the ceiling, 2 in the center one on the left and one on the right, and one near the bottom of the elevator. As you sit there in space your goobstoper don’t move, not one iota. Now let’s say you come back to earth and let yourself free fall through the atmosphere and plummet towards the earth. Now you are experiencing the same sort of weightless feeling you did in deep space so you decide to try the goobstoper experiment again. You put the goobstopers in the exact same places and watch them. The funny thing is that they do move but only very slightly. The top one inches toward the ceiling the center ones move more towards the center and the bottom one goes towards the floor. Again this effect is very small but if you were to fall for quite a long time (and not die in a giant fireball upon impact with the earth’s surface) you would see the goobstopers move! And they are moving because of gravity. Cool experiment right? Now all I need is a glass elevator and some goobstopers…