AAS                    Einstein and all that                                                          March 2007

The 26 February edition of New Scientist had a pull-out supplied by the National Physical Laboratory Teddington.  I've been fascinated by the NPL since a schoolboy, as I was born in Teddington and visited the premises on several occasions when I managed a calibration laboratory for Livingston Electronics before I retired from full-time work.  Don't get me wrong, by the standards of the education of the senior staff at the NPL, I'm an ignoramus.  But I am still interested in metrology (the science of measurement). Don't get the word muddled up with meteorology (the science of the earth's atmosphere, or the weather).  Like 'etymology' and 'entomology'; similar words with vastly different meanings.

The NPL have a dual role in being the leading authority in Britain for measurement, and being a populariser of science.  This pullout emphasises the twin approach.  Even at my modest level I have found a few ambiguities.  I won't say 'errors' because that is not true.  They are incomplete statements.

There are one or two snippets from that pullout that I would like to repeat.  At the top of a mountain a clock will run faster than in the valley below.  Einstein showed that clocks vary depending on the strength of the gravity they are in.  The error doesn't affect normal mortals as, for example, a clock will speed up by 1.09 billionths of a second per day for every kilometre above sea level.  (I am using the modern American billion, not the old British one).  To use the proper scientific nomenclature: 1.09 nano-seconds.

Modern science has got to the point where common sense has been left behind.  I won't talk about quantum mechanics, my head goes into a spin when I try to follow it.  I'll just stay with relative time, and that's bad enough.  According to Einstein, the top of a mountain is older that the valley below.  But when I say "older", I mean that more clock time has elapsed.  Is there an absolute time?  That is something I am trying to find out at the moment.

A few figures that the pullout has given are suitable for a pub quiz, thus:
A    Fingernails grow at 0.000 000 001 of a metre per second
B    Hair grows at 0.000 000 004 metres per second
C    A sprinter travels at 10 metres per second
D    A Formula 1 car travels at 107 metres per second
E    A jumbo jet travels at 250 metres per second
F    The speed of sound is 344 metres per second (presumably in air at sea level at normal temperature and air pressure)
G    The speed of light is 299 792 458 metres per second (presumably in a vacuum)
H    Another quote: a grain of sand converted to energy would provide enough oomph to boil ten million kettles.

If the NPL is approached, they will supply pieces of paper like the New Scientist flyer.  I presume they have a budget that allows them to provide schools and colleges with learning material.  They can be found at 020.8943.6880 and www.npl.co.uk.

I think this is "Einstein Year".  A bright lad, to say the least.  His work helped the USA develop the atom bomb.  It's a good job Hitler was so anti-Jewish, as had Nazi Germany got the bomb first (and they were certainly  working on it) .what would the world be like now?  I dread to think!  I remember news clips saying that the RAF had bombed heavy water plants at Peenemunde.   Of course, at that time I had no idea what heavy water was.  And I don't think 99% of the British population did either