1. Scientific Theories and Laws
2. The First Decade (1936-1946)
4. The Second Decade (1946-1956)
6. The Third Decade (1956-1966)
8. The Fourth Decade (1966-1976)
10. The Fifth Decade (1976-1986)
12. The Sixth Decade (1986-1996)
14. The Seventh Decade (1996-2006)
15. The Theory of More than Everything
16. The Eighth Decade (2006-2016)
18. The Ninth Decade (2016-2026)
Appendix A Paintings
Appendix B TTOMTE and a Steady State Universe
Appendix C Musical Compositions
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They figured their eyes were just stronger than their ears. Their noses were the next strongest tools because they smelled some long-dead mammoth for miles. When they got up to it, they could touch the animal and finally taste it. Mm, yummy.
However, we don't take the situation so personally; we think we can measure the speed of light. As the story goes, Galileo tried to find out how fast light traveled by putting two men miles apart on a dark night. One of them uncovered a lamp, and when the second man saw the light, he uncovered his. The first man then saw the second lamp and knew how long light took to travel in the two directions. However, the experiment didn't work because light travels too fast for measurements on the Earth.
Finally, an astronomer in Paris arrived at the speed by looking at the planet Jupiter and its moons: The intervals when Jupiter eclipsed a moon were different by as much as sixteen minutes depending on whether Jupiter was very close to us or far away. He calculated the speed of light at around 192,000 miles per second, a value quite close to today's accepted speed. Since then, more accurate measurements have all arrived at a common conclusion.
You might think it's a silly question. Motion just means going somewhere, doesn't it? Yes, but being scientists and quite anal about measuring things, that's not good enough.
In the picture below, you are taking a walk on a ship's deck at a rate of about two miles per hour towards the front of the ship. The ship is traveling at twenty-six knots (about thirty miles per hour) across the ocean. If I ask you how fast you're moving, you probably won't let me trick you. You ask, "Compared to what, the ship or the Earth?" You know the answer can be two or thirty-two miles per hour. I might say, "Neither; I'm thinking the moon, and the answer is about one thousand miles per hour."
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