
Clocks, Kids, and General Relativity on Mt Rainier - bd
http://www.leapsecond.com/great2005/tour/
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DavidSJ
It's good he didn't get pulled over.

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noonespecial
I know it was said in jest, and I know this ain't exactly Boston, but geeks do
need to be mindful of this sort of thing. A bearded man in a minivan full of
unrecognizable boxes and wires, the three largest of which have ominous red
counting displays is going to trip the hero circuit on any passing nominally
educated "authority".

Worse still, using the word "atomic" anywhere in your explanation is
practically a ticket to a very long and unpleasant trip through the system
where you will get a new and terrible understanding of the concepts of
ignorance and fear.

I'm glad this worked out for him. The hotel employees (especially the one who
actually went into his _running_ car full of this stuff to get the keys and
bring them to the front desk) must have been some kind of mellow.

I would not be brave enough to try this stunt in todays climate.

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cool-RR
Amazing.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to make an experiment on a similarly low
budget to measure the time dilation due to velocity, instead of altitude?

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quizbiz
Can someone explain the significance? Sounds cool but I am at loss about the
purpose and meaning.

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pavel_lishin
I, for one, am tremendously excited to see kids laying around on a couch and
_reading_.

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grinich
Why is he still running Windows?

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blhack
I know this is blasphemy around some parts of the internet, but windows
2000/xp can actually be a decent OS if used correctly.

don't worry, he is a unix geek as well... <http://leapsecond.com/pages/unix/>

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grinich
phew. thanks.

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Allocator2008
That is just really cool. We need more parents like that who can spend the
time to teach their kids about general relativity. Seriously. Too often
parents either ignore their kids or brainwash them with their own narrow
minded cultural take on the world. Very rarely do the actual facts about the
actual world get passed along. Maybe parents just rely on schools to do it,
but any kind of passing along of enthusiasm about the natural world is highly
commendable. Bravo.

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dxjones
Yes, I agree it is cool for the Dad, and fun for the kids, but, umm, do you
think these kids really learned general relativity? They'd have to be real
brainiacs, considering their young age. Perhaps later in their education, they
may be able to look back on their practical experience tagging along with Dad
on his experiment and it may make more sense.

I do agree that the kids may learn. ... not about general relativity in
particular, but about doing experiments and the notion that ideas can be
"tested" to see if they are really true or false.

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blhack
I think it is more about instilling in them the idea that science can be fun.

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vorador
Well, it doesn't look that fun. To show that science is fun, he should give
them more "hands-on" experiences to do.

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blhack
Umm?

Give kids a _little_ bit more credit than that...

The boys look like they're in 5th grade or so...the girl looks like she is
probably in 3rd? They aren't infants, and their dad obviously works in this
field. This was a great opportunity for them to see what dad does beyond
sitting in a lab all day.

When I was that age I would have been ecstatic to see what my dad did, doubly
so if it had had something to do with science.

