You guys want to play kitchen scientist? The people at Gizmodo have a fun an really cool technique you can use to calculate the speed of light in your kitchen using only kitchen utensils, a microwave and chocolate! Be sure to try out this awesome experiment at home. We know we will!
- Make sure the candy is in a microwave-proof box. Better yet, take the chocolate out and put in a microwave safe dish.
- Remove the turntable in your oven. (You want the candy to stay still while you heat it.) Put an upside-down plate over the turning-thingy, and place your dish of candy on top.
- Heat on high about 20 seconds.
- Take the chocolate out and look for hot spots. Depending on the candy you use, you may have to feel the candy to see where it has softened. With the cherry cordials we used, we saw several shiny spots and one place where the chocolate shell melted through, releasing the sweet syrup inside.
- Measure the distance between two adjacent spots. This should be the distance between the peak and the valley (crest and trough) of the wave. Since the wavelength is the distance between two crests, multiply by 2. Finally, multiply that result by the frequency expressed in hertz or 2,450,000,000 (2.45 X 109)
And there you have it. A close enough value to the actual speed of light!
Source: Gizmodo.
