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THE POET AS SCIENTIST

THE POET AS SCIENTIST, THE POET AS SCIENTIST

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The Geek's Raven
[An excerpt, with thanks to Marcus Bales]

Once upon a midnight dreary,
fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor,
Longing for the warmth of bedsheets,
Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets:
Having reached the bottom line,
I took a floppy from the drawer.
Typing with a steady hand, I then invoked the SAVE command
But got instead a reprimand: it read "Abort, Retry, Ignore".

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Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Why isn't NASA using the Parker Solar Probe to test Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity?

The Parker Solar Probe is expected to achieve a maximum velocity of 430,000 mph or .064% of the speed of light. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe Hence, far more than any experiment we have ever performed in the past, this spacecraft should provide us with an opportunity to observe relativistic time dilation of a substantial, meaningful, and convincing type, to verify whether or not space and time are indeed related, as Einstein tells us they are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation According to my own very possibly erroneous calculations, time dilation should be about 0.00002%, or a factor of .0000002, at this maximum speed for the Parker Solar Probe. Please do correct me, if I'm wrong, I'm sure there are much more practiced mathematicians than myself on this site. In any case, hopefully I'm correct to within an order of magnitude, or so. So, if I'm correct, we're talking about .0007 seconds or so, time dilation, per hour. Now, personally, I don't believe space and time are related. I think time is an abstraction we use to explain change. I do believe gravity affects light, as Einstein correctly tells us, but, I don't think light is the ultimate limit. However, if we find a .0007 second per hour, consistent time dilation on the Parker Solar Probe, I would certainly change my mind. I would acknowledge that space and time are, indeed related, as Einstein tells us. But, if we find no meaningful time dilation at the maximum speed of the Parker Solar Probe, would the true believers in Relativity theory acknowledge their error? Would they admit that space and time actually are not related, at all?

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