TIPS Volume 3, No. 2
October, 2002

     Grade Level Key 
     = Elem,  = Middle
     = High, = Teachers

Winburn STLP's Field Trip to Idea Festival

By Keith Kral

Photos by Emily Lawler

Thursday, the 19th of September, the Winburn STLP held a field trip at the Idea Festival located in the Kentucky Theatre.14 students attended the trip. 

During the Idea Festival, Dr. Richard Gott and Dr. Brian  Green spoke about Time Travel. Dr. Gott is an astrophysicist that studies cosmic strings. Dr. Green is also an astrophysicist who studies cosmic strings. With their research, they have created theories that prove you age more slowly when you are moving. So  to time travel, you must travel the speed of light, 136,000 miles per second, and travel around a cosmic string. A cosmic string is a thin red string left over from the "Big Bang." Diagram 1a shows you a stationary light clock. A light clock is a photon bouncing between two mirrors. Bouncing to and from equals one second. In the next diagram, 1b, there is a moving light clock. The moving light clock is slower than the stationary, because it has to move further to reach each year.  You can understand this by using triangles. By saying the stationary clock's distance between each mirror is the base or height of a triangle, than the distance between the moving clock's mirrors equals the hypotenuse of the triangle. Since Pythagorean's theory states for a triangle a^2+b^2=c^2, a being the base, b being the height, and c being the hypotenuse. With this equation can easily state the hypotenuse is longer than the height or base. Therefore the moving light clock is slower. Since the moving light clock is slower, then that proves if we go at extremely high speeds, we can slow down 

After the Idea Festival, we went and listened the Earth Harp, which we then got to play. The Earth Harp is an oversized harp that is stretched a long ways. The band with the Earth Harp practiced dance as well as played drums.

Diagram #1a

Diagram #1b

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For more information on the STLP program, contact Paula Whitmer, STLP Coordinator