We’re all familiar with what light is: most of us use it to perceive the world. You probably also know that light travels at a certain (very very fast) speed, although you might not know off the top of your head what it is. Well, there’s no need to look it up because you can measure it yourself!
And what’s more, you can do this with a hot dog and your microwave oven. No, this is not another April Fools Joke.
The experiment is actually quite simple, so check it out at From Quarks to Quasars.
If you decide to give the experiment a go, we’d love to hear what your result was in the comments below!
You might even like to calculate how much energy is in your hot dog using Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2. In this formula, E is energy of the hot dog, m is the mass, and c is the speed of light. Don’t worry if the amount of energy comes out really high: this is how much you’d get if you anihilated the matter into pure energy, not how many calories you’d absorb if you eat the hot dog!
The featured image above is created from two photos. The hot dog image is borrowed with thanks from Steven Depolo under a Creative Commons Licence. The laser image is borrowed from the US Air Force and is in the public domain.