Wikipedia Trail: From Turmeric to Special Relativity


(Turmeric rhizome and powder, from Wikipedia)


Turmeric
I saw this on the class Twitter stream. I always thought it was spelled/pronounced "tumeric," but that's not the case. My mom LOVES turmeric because of all the benefits it has when you eat it. Apparently, it's in the same family as ginger! Whenever I buy turmeric, it's already processed and ground up, and is usually a powder, but it looks really similar to a ginger root, except that it's orange instead of yellow. The picture on Twitter mentioned mixing it with milk to cure coughs and colds. Next time I have a cough or cold, I'll be sure to try it.

Ayuverda
Of course, turmeric has many medicinal properties, and is used in a system of medicine rooted in India - Ayuverda. It's been said that Dhanvantari, the god of Ayuverda, passed on this knowledge to some physicians. It has treatments that include herbal, mineral, and metal mixtures, as well as surgical techniques, surprisingly! Ancient Ayuverda practitioners learned rhinoplasty, kidney stone extractions, and extraction of foreign objects. Wow! They were ahead of their time, unless those things were prescribed for the wrong reasons.

Aether
Like older medicinal practices tended to do, Ayuverda divided bodily substances into five elements: earth, water, fire, air and....aether (ether). Basically it was the element pre-20th century scientists used to describe natural phenomena they couldn't understand, like how light could travel through the vacuum of space. They said that, because aether was everywhere in space, light could travel through it. That was proven wrong by the Michelson-Morley experiment, though.

Special Relativity
And of course, when talking about light traveling through space, how could you not think of relativity?! Based on two postulates from the famous Albert Einstein - (1) the laws of physics don't change for objects not accelerating and (2) the speed of light is constant in a vacuum - this theory describes how space and time are related. E = mc^2, am I right?

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