So I was just shutting down the computer and turning back to my string theory computations when… you’re not going to believe this…..on NPR’s news and current affairs program All Things Considered, there was a piece by commentator Aaron Freeman about Baseball and Special Relativity! He does not just briefly mention it, but he goes into some depth about time dilation, Lorentz contraction, different inertial frames, etc….. and it’s pretty good! You can listen to the segment at the link I gave above.
Wow! I thought I’d dozed off and my dream that one day everyone will mix basic science into everyday conversation had come true! (Maybe I am asleep…how would I know?). Did the usual editors protecting the public from anything “complicated” have the day off? Inquiring minds need to know.
If it turns out that I’m sleeping, then I must say that I like this dreamworld…..
-cvj
[P.S. Update: Ok, so at the beginning he's not distinguished very well between velocity and acceleration, but I consider that a minor colloquial issue in this context.]
August 8th, 2005 at 9:10 pm
Aaron Freeman is a Chicago-based comedian and commentator who is well-known for his appreciation of physics — check out the photo on his home page! He does a lot of pieces for Chicago Public Radio, including one on Fermilab that was genuinely enthusiastic about all those particles zooming around.
August 9th, 2005 at 7:45 pm
Clifford, now I can make a baseball fan out of you! No sport is as centered around statistics as baseball, yet many people have compared it to opera. Oh, the arias! Now I am going to head home and hopefully watch the Angels kick Oakland’s butt.
August 9th, 2005 at 8:07 pm
Hi Cathy! Hmmm – I’ve seen live a total of two baseball games and enjoyed them both, but I must confess that I was not so gripped by the game to imagine being a “fan”, although the stadium atmosphere was fun….. Maybe I’ll have to see a few more before making up my mind. There do seem to be long bits of not much happening (like in Cricket, admittedly – England won the second Ashes game by the way!)….now I know that during those long gaps one is supposed to be calculating relativistic corrections to the trajectories, etc, on one’s ketchup-soiled napkin. Why didn’t anyone tell me that before?
-cvj
August 10th, 2005 at 12:23 pm
[...] Well, I may have more evidence that something has happened to the senior editing and production staff at NPR. Recall that Monday on All Things Considered there was an extended commentary on baseball, heavily spiced with Special Relativity, about which I posted. You’ll remember that I was pretty sure I was dreaming. They let good modern science be used in a lightly entertaining way in one of their pieces on sport. This was exciting and bodes well for the future. I realize it could be just for Einstein Year, and then they’ll go back to “protecting” the public from “hard” science after December 31st, but a man can dream, can’t he? [...]