On special request, my final lecture of 'Natural Sciences for the Humanities' was about Einstein's special theory of relativity. Before this week, we had covered Greek geometry up to Newton's mechanics.
My students had questions:
- In Star Wars, when they go faster than light, why do the stars look like stars?
- If you imagine time as person, do you imagine a man or a woman?
馃拰 my students
@SylviaFysica And your answers?
@mlevel The first one became a conversation at the blackboard about how the starlight travels to the observer. (And, oops, I notice now that I mistyped, the Q was: why do the stars look like stripes?) My excuses were: there is no faster than light travel in special relativity and I'm a Trekkie. 1/2
@mlevel The second one threw me even more. 馃槉 I started by saying that the whole point of the lecture was that in relativity, time cannot uniquely be separated from space, so it's hard to personify. But that traditionally, time is seen as a man, so I would find it more interesting to think about associations with Spring/seasons, flow, and cyclical time as female.
What would you have answered for the 2nd Q?
2/2
@SylviaFysica Well, I'm no astrophysicist, and also note the "Father Time" trope, but agree that women are more closely linked to time, and time to women, than men.
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