Cherenkov radiation is the result of the experiment.
A nice reminder that, contrary to the sickly green you usually see in fiction, glowy radiation is usually a lovely blue. But what’s happening? Well, something’s going faster than light! I’m not a physicist, so i might be getting some details wrong, but this is as far as i understand it:
See, the speed of light is a universal constant, the c of e=mc². But that’s only in a vacuum—so much of physics is based first and foremost on activity in a vacuum—and the speed of light through matter is often significantly slower. Instead of 1 c, light moves through liquid water at about 0.75 c. That may still be ludicrously fast, but it’s still slowed down enough that charged particles like electrons can exceed that speed within the medium in question. Exceeding that speed does all kinds of weird, somewhat terrifying and very exciting things to the electromagnetic field of the medium, including the creation of a shockwave in a manner very similar to a sonic boom.
In other words, that bright blue visible radiation is what happens when a particle exceeds the speed-of-light-in-water and creates a luminal boom.
Law professor Roger Fisher suggested that nuclear launch codes be implanted in a volunteer’s heart. The president would be required to personally take the life of an innocent person before taking the lives of hundreds of millions. (Source)
“My God that’s terrible. Having to kill someone would distort the President’s judgment. He might never push the button.” Isn’t that the point tho?
Exactly.
That’s some great symbolism. Makes a point of thinking through the real consequences of what can easily be a very detachable choice of action. Of course, there’d be countless criminals, terrorists, spies, etc. hunting that person down to kill them and extract the code. They’d basically just give it to enemies or the highest bidder to do with it as they please. Not thinking through the potential negative consequences of the initial extreme action (using a human being as a safe) could actually lead to a significantly worse outcome. Fascinating how issues of such magnitude don’t exist in a vacuum. But yeah, symbolism.
Inspiration Haven 