So.. on the bus to uni this morning, I decided to finally compile some of these thoughts into one place, before my memory further deteriorates.
Here they are.
- Relativity: this thought occurred to me sometime back in 2001. It was based on a small curiosity on my way home from school, in dad's car.
I sneezed. I looked out the window, and saw some people walking along the footpath, as we zoomed past them.
Then I wondered.."Well, sound can be seen by recording them in wave forms.. like the ones you see on TV! the funny fuzzy line things.. So taking that idea.. if you were to record my sneeze on a long sheet of paper along the road, as I traveled past in my dad's car(going at however fast it was going at that moment, but also given that it's faster than normal walking speed), you'd end up with a very long piece of the drawn sound wave(relative to the person walking, but not me, because I'd be traveling fast past it.)
Then I thought.. well, if I had a device that could read this graphical interpretation of (the sound of) my sneeze as I traveled past it, it would play back the sound at the speed of which I was traveling at.
I.E. If I was to take this paper(with the sound drawn on it, like those seismograph thingos), and walk at "walking speed" alongside it, with my playback device, it would sound like a slow-mo version of my sneeze, therefore the duration would be much longer(the faster my original speed was, the longer the sound would be at walking speed).
However, if I was to jump back in the car, travel at the same speed at which I was traveling before, again with my playback device, it would sound "normal" like how I heard myself in the car."
In 2001, if I had the linguistic skill to explain the above idea as I have done now, I definitely would have. However as a child, most things you can't really explain in words, but can visualise. I attempted to explain this to my parents once, but they didn't really get it, most likely due to my poor explanation. So I never bothered to try explaining it to anyone after that. I wanted to, but I kept to myself. (Publish or perish, gah!)
It only occurred to me, during year 12 physics, that this thought touches the surface of what we call "relativity" - largely involving frames of references.
This suggests an idea to hike up the primary education level a little more(especially in Australia since I've only lived here and in Korea and nowhere else, but that's not saying that they teach relativity in Korea >_>), or at least for some internally, and if so, in more places. I believe 10 year olds are capable of handling the idea of relativity as proven - the most problematic issue here would be finding an excellent educator to explain this to them.
I certainly couldn't do it if I was asked, probably.
For this point, I have purposely tried to stay away from correct terminologies, as an attempt to explain it as close as possible to how I would've at the time. Although it's evidently unsuccessful. There would've been more "you know" and "like"s.. xD - Taxi drivers: This was back in Korea, on a rainy day; I remember this because I was busy drawing on the foggy window P:
Dad and I were going to some relative's house.. and as usual, we're stuck in traffic. A sudden thought came to me. What if the taxi driver was taking the long route to make us pay more?
Then, guess what, dad makes the same suggestion to the driver, that it seems like he's going around places on purpose to hike up the taxi fee. Of course, he denied, the argument continued, but I tuned out.
People, small children aren't all innocent.. some like to scheme.. A lot.
I guess my point here is that it's sad in a way that a young child would be tainted with such injustices of society.. Children are very good observers. They absorb everything like shamwow. - I WANT MY MUMMY: During the celebration of my 100th day of living(all relatives were gathered, also this is a Korean tradition, 돌잔치), the grown-ups were busy taking photos of me and a cousin sitting behind the ginormous empirical table, fiddling with various things. I don't remember what I was doing, of course, but I do remember wailing because mum didn't come to me when I wanted her to. Instead, my aunt came and sat me on her lap, and believe it or not, I do actually remember the fear, and wanting mum, not this random lady who I felt was trying to force me to sit still.
Now, that sounds ridiculous, but one thing I'm sure of is that either I actually do remember the feelings(I doubt this myself. No proof to back this up.), or someone somehow really made me believe it sometime way back in the past when I was in the most gullible mode.
Amazing, huh.
