so week after Easter and that means
homes all across America are overflowing
with stale peeps now you could either
eat those peeps or you could use them to
find the speed of light finances the
speed of light is one of those numbers
that people have chased for centuries
Galileo wanted to know how fast light
moves Bonasera so he proposed an
experiment by John little he would
uncover a lantern and when the light
reached his assistant the assistant
would quickly uncover his own Lantern
using a water clock Galileo would keep
track of the time between uncovering his
light and scenes a systems light up
close there was no noticeable delay
except for the split second it took his
assistant to react then they started
moving away from each other
Galileo figured the delay would get
longer and longer because the light
would need more time to travel the
greater distance but even when they were
a mile apart
there wasn't a noticeable pause gave
rabiyah he couldn't have guessed that
light had made that trip in one hundred
thousandth of a second centuries later
in 18-49 a French scientist whose name I
can't pronounce Oh Mon petit lui fizzle
came up with an even better way to
measure the speed of light which was
pretty impressive considering that
people weren't even using light bulbs
yet he took a tooth tuile and spun it
faster and faster he shot a beam of
light between the teeth and reflected
that beam of light off a mere five miles
away oh by the time the light got back a
tiny fraction of a second later the
teeth had moved over just enough to
block the light no light made it back
through but if he made the wheel spin a
little faster the teeth would move over
one whole position and the light could
get through so when he saw the light he
knew the wheel was spinning so fast that
a single tooth was moving over one place
in the time it took light to travel ten
miles
there's some quick math I'm on a pony
Louie fizzle determined that the speed
of light was 700 million miles per hour
which we now know was only 5% off the
actual value today I can find the speed
of light in my kitchen and that brings
us back to peeps finances and a
microwave and a microwave and just a
little bit of physics and physics
microwaves travel at the speed of light
and like all waves their speed is
determined by how fast they go up and
down that's the frequency and their
wavelength frequency is written on the
side of my microwave right here two
thousand four hundred and fifty
megahertz so we got the frequency now to
calculate the speed we just need to know
the wavelength and we can find a
wavelength by microwaving peeps I'll set
it on low so the peeps don't just
explode let it run for a minute or two
inside microwaves are bouncing around in
some spots there isn't much energy at
all and the peeps in those areas stay
cold in other spots there's lots of
energy and the peeps get really hot
those hot spots are half a wavelength
apart so in theory if I measure the
distance between melted peeps I can find
the wavelength sure enough some of the
peeps are really gooey while others
haven't melted at all poking around I
found a rough location for a hand fold
hot spots and I measured the distance
between them
those averaged out to two point four
three inches so that's half a wavelength
multiplied by two when we get a
wavelength of four point eight six
inches so now to find the speed of the
microwaves which remember is the speed
of light I just have to do the math
frequency times wavelength two thousand
four hundred and fifty megahertz times
four point eight six inches gives us
about 12 billion inches per second or
676 million miles per hour
and that's pretty close to the actual
speed of light
we just down speeds wow that's a lot of
hot chicks I was trying to get this
peope to tell a joke but it's a little
chicken I'm sorry those were some pretty
foul puns anyway I hope you found this
video and Lightning yellow it's a bunny
rabbit I really went off the peep in
there need i say more
because it's melted marshmallows
delicious