This Is A Light-Nanosecond!

less than 1m read

·Nov 10, 2024

I trimmed my beard yesterday, so I'm feeling a bit like a baby today. But look at the trimmings! Specifically this one that is 2.4 fortnits worth of beard growth. How do I know? Well, because of this tool I made. This about 5 years ago to free people from the tyranny of standard units. It measures in weird units like beard fortnits, the typical length of beard grows every 2 weeks.

It's also got light pico seconds, how far light travels in a trillionth of a second. If you didn't get one 5 years ago but you're subscribed much later this year, three boxes from now you'll get one in a special Legacy box we're making. The entire ruler is exactly one light nond long. This is how far light travels in a vacuum in 1 nond.

Everything I see from this distance, I'm seeing as it was a billionth of a second ago. It's a reminder that you live in the past because light has a finite speed. You do not see things as they are; you see the universe only as it was. Also, you're going nowhere if you fall asleep tonight in the same bed you woke up in this morning. Your average velocity for the day will be zero.

Applying volume of solids | Solid geometry | High school geometry | Khan Academy

It’s the Diseases We Get As We Age That Kill Us | Breakthrough

View All

This is why I'll NEVER flip houses...

Lots of you guys, it’s Graham here. So, as many of you know, I’ve been working full-time in real estate since 2008 as a real estate agent, which means I’m kind of getting old now. Now, if you’re doing that, I’ve helped my own clients flip properties for a…

Warren Buffett, Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway Investment Group | Terry Leadership Speaker Series

Good morning. It certainly got quiet quickly. That surprised me. Can you hear me? Are you there? Back well for business school, you know, it doesn’t get much better than this. Having the world’s greatest investor come to our campus is quite a bore. Office…

Spread of Islam part 3 | World History | Khan Academy

Other videos, we have talked about the early history of Islam, which really revolves around the life of Muhammad. Muhammad, as we talked about, was born roughly in 570 and dies in 632. And on this timeline here, the white period is before, according to Mu…

Kirsty Nathoo - Managing Startup Finances

Morning everybody! Thank you for coming in at 9 o’clock. It’s an early start. So, as Kevin mentioned, my name is Kirsty Nathu, and I’m the CFO here at Y Combinator. So, I’ve actually helped now 2,000 companies, almost, as they’ve come through Y Combinato…

Learn to Love Your Mistakes

You mentioned in the book that you need to learn to love your mistakes. Even as I was telling you about my hopeless, uh—or not hopeless, but hapless, uh, tendencies, there’s a part of me I start to flush. I start to feel embarrassed. It’s like it’s a litt…

NASA's Urgent Message | Years of Living Dangerously

I think the future of agriculture in California is really at risk today. Don Cheadle was here, and we were talking about issues of satellite observations of groundwater depletion and how it’s happening in California. Over the last few years, California’s …

This Is A Light-Nanosecond!

More Articles