19
Condor
5y

Just as I wait for my train, some advertisers from a utility company here approached me. Asking what my company is etc..
Me: "well I'm making my own company..."
*Looks at their pamphlet*
"Oh, utility company you mean. My apartment building has solar panels."
Them: "oh you know about electricity right... And F-16, the fighter jets that fly at 3000km/h"
(My neighbor is a former aerospace technician who mentioned that previously, should be about right)
Them: "they fly faster than electricity!"
Me: "but um.. electricity travels at the speed of light..."
Them: *avoid subject*
Them: "yeah it travels 7 times around the globe in 1 second"
Me: *recalls ping to my servers in Italy*
"Yeah to Italy my ping is about 300ms if memory serves me right... So that'd make sense"
(Turned out to be 40ms.. close enough though, right 🙃)
Them: "don't travel too much at light speed, alright!"
*They pack up and leave*

Meanwhile me, thinking: but guys.. all I wanted to do was smoke a cigarette before my train comes. Why did you waste my time with this? And uninformed time wastage at that.

Advertisers are the worst 😶

Comments
  • 7
    Electricity is a bit slower than light.
  • 4
    @sbiewald even glass slows down light. Some materials slow it down to 17m/s or the cherenkow radiation. Its an optic sonic boom.
  • 3
    @stop does it slow it down or make the path of travel longer
  • 1
    @electrineer c is constant, light just has to avoid more molecules in glass/water so the path is longer
  • 1
    @stop "17 m/s or the cerenkov radiation"
    I don't think you understand how the cerenkov radiation works 🤔
  • 0
    I know some things that make light stop moving!
    sheesh.
  • 1
    @magicMirror black holes dont stop light.
  • 2
    @magicMirror oh come on 😂
    @stop Cherenkov radiation is really interesting! I never heard about this before. Thanks! 😁
  • 1
    @stop interesting physics question. What *does* happen to light near a blackhole?
  • 1
    @magicMirror gravity affects its path, but other than that it keeps working pretty much the same.
    Now, a Bose-Einstein condensate on the other hand...
  • 0
    @endor Hmmmmm. 🧐 but is it possible for a light photon to get captured in a stable orbit around a black hole? if a gravity well affects the light, and causes it to bend...
    Think of The famous thought experiment of an astronaunt falling into a black hole (assuming tide forces does not rip him to quarks).

    also, a random TP quote: up, down, sideways, sex appeal, and peppermint.
  • 1
    @magicMirror yes, it's possible: that orbit is precisely the event horizon.
    However, it's only stable if we assume that the black hole's mass stays constant (which it doesn't, due to new mass falling in and/or Hawking radiation).
    But if you somehow managed to keep the bh's mass constant over time, and you set off a photon on a path perfectly tangent to the event horizon, then it would keep travelling in a stable orbit, yes.

    (Also, a gravity well does not 'bend' light - it curves spacetime itself, thus affecting the photon's path)
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