Bolton Landing

When watching fireworks, I like to chant "Blue one! Blue one! Blue one!" and then when it's a blue one, I jump all around, high-fiving everyone around me.

Because sound travels slower than light, you always see the lights of the firework before you hear its bang. If I were a fireworker, I would set off a bang with no fire at the beginning of the show, and then follow it with normal fireworks. That way, it would look like the bang was coming before the light, and that my fireworks defied physics.

At first, people wouldn't think much about this. As time went on, however, the implications of my physics-defying fireworks would begin to sink in. What if it wasn't just the fireworks? What if the fireworks were a prelude to the unraveling of all the rules of physics? They'd begin to look around and notice things. Wasn't Mars supposed to be in the eastern sky during this time of year? Why isn't that helium balloon floating anymore? Was that child's head growing? Is the fabric of the universe literally coming apart at the seams? Slowly, people would consider the implications of atoms flying off of molecules, and a sense of unease would begin to spread, growing and expanding until there was full blown panic, people running and screaming, clinging to earth as if gravity might fail them at any moment, afraid to get into their cars because they might transmogrify into giant spiders or living room furniture or whatever. Total panic.

That'd be fun.

As it is, you can use the fact that light travels faster than sound to figure out how far away the fireworks are. I've taught my children how to do this. So last night, Emma saw a flash, counted 3.5 seconds until she heard a boom, multiplied by the speed of sound, 744.29 cubits per second (meters are for chumps), and said, "Dad, the fireworks are 2605 cubits away!"

Which is obviously wrong. She always forgets to subtract out the speed of light, which, while negligible, is NOT zero.

Idiot.