I share a Birthday with Benedict Cumberbatch, but time is relative...
I share a birthday with the English actor and star of Sherlock Mr Benedict Cumberbatch in reality, however in fact we are a day apart. Huh ? Just what is she on about now you ask.
Ok so this is sort of a Physics problem or a problem caused by humans perceptions of physics and time in particular. You see as we all know and Mr Einstein pointed out in his famous thought experiment with the train, time is relative to the observer. Humans seem obsessed with quantifying and measuring time even though it is an entirely arbitrary concept.
I mean think about it, the Islamic calendar is different to the Gregorian one and before Greenwich mean time in 1884 it was never the same time anywhere! But anyway back to birthdays and how two people not born on the same day actually can be. Due to the whole Prime Meridian thing, days are the same length all over the world and are calculated based on where you are in terms of longitude.
I was born on July 20th at 02:43 in Melbourne Australia, at the same time in London England where my Father was born and my grandparents were at the time of my birth it was 17:43 on the 19th of July. So at the exact moment I was born the date in London was July 19th and had my Dad telephoned my grandparents to tell them of my arrival at that moment they would have perceived me as having been born on July 19th, as for them it was the 19th not the 20th as it was for my Father. You see now the physics comes into it as time is relative to the observer or it's just different if your relatives are on the other side of the planet.
Thus as Benedict Cumberbatch was born in London on the 19th of July, he and I were born on the same day (sort of). Even though I was born on the 20th !
So if you actually understood all that timey wimey stuff and have managed to keep reading up to this point we should probably end this by saying Happy Birthday to me and Benedict !
(Oh and thank you to Professor Hawking for making me think of this when watching "Stephen Hawking's Grand Design" incidentally narrated by Mr Cumberbatch as the voice of Hawking, spooky huh ?)
Ok so this is sort of a Physics problem or a problem caused by humans perceptions of physics and time in particular. You see as we all know and Mr Einstein pointed out in his famous thought experiment with the train, time is relative to the observer. Humans seem obsessed with quantifying and measuring time even though it is an entirely arbitrary concept.
I mean think about it, the Islamic calendar is different to the Gregorian one and before Greenwich mean time in 1884 it was never the same time anywhere! But anyway back to birthdays and how two people not born on the same day actually can be. Due to the whole Prime Meridian thing, days are the same length all over the world and are calculated based on where you are in terms of longitude.
I was born on July 20th at 02:43 in Melbourne Australia, at the same time in London England where my Father was born and my grandparents were at the time of my birth it was 17:43 on the 19th of July. So at the exact moment I was born the date in London was July 19th and had my Dad telephoned my grandparents to tell them of my arrival at that moment they would have perceived me as having been born on July 19th, as for them it was the 19th not the 20th as it was for my Father. You see now the physics comes into it as time is relative to the observer or it's just different if your relatives are on the other side of the planet.
Thus as Benedict Cumberbatch was born in London on the 19th of July, he and I were born on the same day (sort of). Even though I was born on the 20th !
So if you actually understood all that timey wimey stuff and have managed to keep reading up to this point we should probably end this by saying Happy Birthday to me and Benedict !
(Oh and thank you to Professor Hawking for making me think of this when watching "Stephen Hawking's Grand Design" incidentally narrated by Mr Cumberbatch as the voice of Hawking, spooky huh ?)
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