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Ask yourself this: Why is it that a bullet can travel through a vacuum, but ocean waves require an ocean?This is not a facetious comparison. A bullet, spaceship, or unlucky poodle has no difficulty passing through vacuum because it’s a discrete object, and in order to continue moving once set in motion, it only requires that nothing stand in its way.Ocean waves, on the other hand, are merely perturbations of seawater. Without any seawater, there can be no such perturbation.In the same way, sound is a perturbation of air, and without sufficient air density to transmit the perturbation from molecule to molecule, no sound can be transmitted—at least in the ordinary terrestrial sense.So, what’s the case with light? Well you probably know that light is often spoken of as composed of discrete particles called photons. If you think of light as a swarm of little light particles, it’s easy to see how it can travel through a vacuum, it does so as easily as a shotgun blast.But you may also known that photons and other elementary “particles” are said to have a dual nature in which they sometimes appear to be particles and sometimes waves. You are asking this question because intuitively you know that if light is a wave as you understand waves from your everyday understanding of sound and ocean waves, it should not be able to travel through a vacuum any more than these can.And you are absolutely right. This is what led early physicists to try in vain to find evidence for an “ether” through which light could propagate. And since such an ether was found not to exist, it’s what tells us that despite the similarities and the confusing terminology, light isn’t a wave at all. At least not in the everyday sense.We started out thinking light was either a particle or a wave through some hidden ether. Then we decided it was composed of “wavicles” that are somehow both particle and wave. Then we modernized that term to “quanta” to reflect the realization that they are neither.Light (and other elementary “particles”) are not particles at all, and are not waves at all. They are quanta, and quanta are weird. They come in discrete units and sometimes exhibit the characteristics of particles and they sometimes coordinate their action and exhibit the characteristics of waves, but they ARE NOT EITHER. They are what they are, and however useful our everyday models for them may be, especially in explaining the world to small children, reality is quite different. Any attempt to understand quanta as anything other than what they are will ultimately come to little.So, in the end, light can travel through a vacuum because it is composed of quanta called photons, and it is a property of photons that they require no medium of transmission.If you like science, you might enjoy my free award-winning scifi sampler.

It all started with a long-simmering intraparty dispute. By 1846, Northern Democrats had a lot to be angry about. The roots of this discontent had been planted in the process that had culminated in the selection of James K. Polk as the Democratic Party’s candidate for the election of 1844.In 1846, a freshman representative from Pennsylvania rose to propose an amendment to an appropriation bill, in order to exclude slavery from any territory that might be acquired from Mexico. Instead of dividing along party lines, the House divided along sectional lines. The amendment ended up not becoming law. But, in retrospect, it was the first salvo in a protracted fight that would culminate in civil war 15 years later.That is the crux of the story. But, as ever with such stories, there is a longer version. Read on.Every Jesus has a Paul, and every Louis XIII has a Richelieu, an éminence grise, an architect and master of logistics who builds and organizes the structures that will stand the test of time. For the Democratic Party, that figure was Martin Van Buren. Conscious of the division that sectionalism could engender, he used the spoils system, a vast system of patronage politics, as a glue to ensure party loyalty and discipline.He was elected to the presidency in 1836, after Andrew Jackson’s two terms, in time to be blamed for the Panic of 1837, a recession that would last nearly a decade. He was voted out of office in 1840, to the benefit of William Henry Harrison, but had good reason to expect to be nominated as the Democratic Party’s candidate for the election of 1844. He was from New York, and Northern Democrats were firmly in his camp. Southern Democrats, too, had pledged their support before the Democratic convention. But then the problem of Texas intervened and changed everything.The great question before the American public in 1844 was whether Texas should be annexed. Annexation meant war with Mexico, the admission of Texas in the Union as a slave state, and possibly further territorial expansion in a Southwestern direction. Martin Van Buren, as a Northerner, was opposed. He drafted a noncommittal letter in which he let it be known that he would be for annexation only with stipulations that would delay the acquisition of territory into the indefinite future. This cost him the support of his Southern and expansionist delegates.They could not simply renege on their pledge to support him, so they came up with a stratagem: rather than nominating a candidate based on majority support, as had been done in 1840, they would introduce a motion to require a 2/3 vote for the nomination of a candidate, as had been done in 1832. Van Buren had the lead on the first ballot, but he fell short of the 2/3 needed to win outright. He gradually lost ground in the next few rounds of voting, until Polk was proposed as a compromise candidate. Polk’s campaign managers were smart enough to make sure his name was brought forth by a Northerner, in order to make it more palatable to the Van Burenites. And on the 9th ballot, Polk was chosen unanimously, in a vote that masked the deep discontent of the Northern wing of the party. Polk might have had broad support, but many Northern Democrats still felt betrayed. They would get their revenge in 1852, when Van Buren would siphon off enough votes from Lewis Cass to enable Zachary Taylor to win.Part of what had made Polk palatable was that, although he supported the annexation of Texas, he also supported the annexation of the Oregon territory. What was called the Oregon territory at the time included our modern states of Oregon, Washington, and the Southern half of British Columbia. Because 54°40′ was the northern boundary of the disputed territory, the slogan Fifty-Four Forty or Fight! was retroactively coined and ascribed to the campaign. But, in truth, the Oregon issue was a bit of an afterthought in the actual campaign.What is true is the fact that the Democratic Party platform called for the “reannexation” of both Oregon and Texas meant that Northerners expected a quid pro quo: in exchange for their support for the annexation of Texas (and possibly of more Mexican territory, following a war with Mexico), Polk would push to annex the entire Oregon territory. Here is what the text of the platform actually said:Resolved, That our title to the whole of the Territory of Oregon is clear and unquestionable; that no portion of the same ought to be ceded to England or any other power, and that the reoccupation of Oregon and the re-annexation of Texas at the earliest practicable period are great American measures, which this Convention recommends to the cordial support of the Democracy of the Union.But, with the vote for War against Mexico in hand, Polk turned around and negotiated a peaceful partition with Britain. Northern Democrats, again, felt betrayed enough that 12 of them in the Senate voted against ratification of the treaty. But it passed anyway, thanks to unanimous Whig support.The Northern Democrats had yet another reason to be displeased with the Polk administration. This was the issue of tariffs. Tariffs are import duties. Their aim is to make foreign goods more expensive, in order to give domestic manufacturing a leg up in the local economy. Northerners had been supporters of tariffs since the days of Alexander Hamilton. But in the South, tariffs were seen as giveaways to Northern capitalists, at the expense of the South, where goods would be more expensive, without a commensurate benefit in the local economy.During the 1844 campaign, Polk had been vague enough about his intention on the tariff issue to allow everyone to read into his promises whatever they wanted to see. Democratic leaders were able to campaign in the North and tell their voters that Polk would be friendly to tariffs, and Polk won many Northern states.But then he appointed Robert J. Walker, a firm believer in free trade, as his Secretary of the Treasury. Walker then pushed for a tariff reduction bill, which was successfully pushed through, passing in the Senate by only one vote, including two votes in the affirmative from the new state of Texas. For many Northern Democrats, this was the last straw. And, as we have all learned, The North Remembers. A week later, the Wilmot Proviso was proposed.At the time of the signing of the Constitution, there was little difference between Northerners and Southerners on the question of slavery. There was broad agreement that it was desirable that someday the institution should fall into obsolescence. In 1787, Thomas Jefferson authored the Northwest ordinance, “an Ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the River Ohio.”The 6th and last article said this: There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.It was an open secret that Polk wanted a appropriation bill in which money would be provided for the negotiation of a Mexican cession of territory. He did not want long, embarrassing debates, so he waited until the very end of a Congressional session to have the bill introduced. On the House floor, the apparatus of party discipline was activated: total debate would be limited to 2 hours, and no one could speak more than 10 minutes. After a few speeches were made for and against the measure, the Chair recognized David Wilmot, a first-term Representative from Pennsylvania. He had been a faithful party man and had voted with the administration, even on the unpopular tariff bill. But now, he surprised everyone, first by attacking the administration, and then by proposing an amendment to the appropriation bill:Provided, That, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted.An Indiana representative proposed the substitution of Wilmot’s amendment by another: the extension of the Missouri Compromise line, which was duly defeated. When the Wilmot Proviso came up to a vote it passed by 80 to 64. All but 3 of the no votes were from slave states.When the whole bill, with the Proviso included came up to a vote, a curious development occurred. The Southern members, who had been so keen on appropriating funds for acquisition of territory now turned against the bill. They moved to table it. Again, a sectional rather than a partisan division was apparent: all but 4 Northerners voted against tabling the motion; all but 3 Southerners voted for. The amended bill then passed 85 to 80, largely along sectional lines. It appeared that the South preferred no territorial acquisition to a territorial acquisition that would ban slavery in the new territories.The Polk administration, opposed to the Proviso, came up with a new plan: They would submit the bill to the Senate at the last possible minute, and ensure that it pass with a motion to remove the offending amendment. Then they would rush the bill back to the House for an up or down vote, without any time for new amendments. At this point, Whig Senator John Davis conceived of a novel idea: he would just talk, and talk, and talk…There is debate about what Davis was trying to accomplish. Some say that he was trying to waste time in order to force the Senate to vote on and approve the version of the bill containing the Proviso. Other say that he was trying to kill the bill because he anticipated the division it would cause. Either way, by the time the clock showed 8 minutes left on the session, he was informed that the House, whose clock was running faster, had already adjourned.It is likely that Polk would have vetoed the measure with the Proviso attached, but one can say for sure. All that is certain is that the Proviso did not become law. And yet, in the years to come, it would prove a rallying point for many Northerners.From the point of view of Northerners in the 1840s, it seemed clear that the founders had exhibited a clear pro-freedom preference. Yes, some of them may have been slave owners, including the author of the Northwest Ordinance, but this had not precluded them from setting the nation on the path to the eventual abolition of slavery.The Northern public did not believe in racial equality. And, indeed, the “free” negro of the North was decidedly a second-class citizen:He could vote but in very few placesHe could not serve on a jury.Except in some parts of Massachusetts, he could not attend non-segregated schools.He was considered a human being, but one of an inferior race.The majority of those who opposed slavery wanted to deport the negro to Africa or to some Caribbean island. This was called “colonization.” Lincoln himself remained a supporter of colonization far into his presidency.But in spite of this, much of the North had, by the 1830s, developed a dislike for slavery, as it became clear that it would not become extinct on its own. In the South, people had gone from acknowledging that slavery was morally problematic to praising it as a positive for the negro, who was content to live as a slave, and whose soul had been saved by Christianization. Southerners argued that the anti-slavery agitators in the North were not concerned one bit for the fate of the negro, but were trying to impose their economic hegemony on the South. In 1858, Senator Jefferson Davis would give the following speech in Congress:What do you propose, you gentlemen of the Free-Soil party? Do you propose to better the condition of the slave? Not at all. Do you propose to emancipate the slave? Not at all. What then do you propose? You say you are opposed to the expansion of the institution of slavery; that you are unwilling that one more foot of territory shall be dedicated to slavery; but that you are determined that all territory shall hereafter be free soil. Now, who is to be benefited by that? Is the white man of the South to be benefited by it? Not at all. Is the slave to be benefited by it? Not at all.Then it is not the interests of the slave which you are after, gentlemen of the Free-Soil party. It is not humanity that influences you in the position which you now occupy before the country. But you are influenced by a desire on your part to take from us unjustly the proceeds of our labor. In other words, your desire is to reduce us to the attitude which Prometheus was made to occupy, that you, like the vulture, may fatten on the products of our soil and industry. It is that you may have an opportunity of cheating us that you want to limit slave territory within circumscribed bounds. It is that you may have a majority in the Congress of the United States, and convert the Government into an engine of northern aggrandizement. It is that your section may grow in power and prosperity upon treasures unjustly taken from the South, like the vampire bloated and gorged with the blood which it has secretly sucked from its victim.Jefferson Davis had a point. The Northern position was inconsistent. Some few called for immediate abolition, but they constituted the radical left-wing fringe. Most people understood that a call for immediate abolition was tantamount to a call for the dissolution of the Union. And, torn between their love of the Union and their distaste of slavery, most Northerners opted for the preservation of the Union.Because of this, they would not push for the abolition of slavery where it already existed. Many did not even think that Congress had the authority to abolish slavery. But, what they were not willing to countenance was to extend slavery into a place where it did not exist. Mexican territory was such a place. True, slavery had not existed in Texas before its importation there by American settlers, but Texas had not been under the control of the American government at the time. But extending slavery into further Mexican territory, territory now under the control of Congress would be to partake in the sin of the perpetuation of slavery. And this, they would not do.Before the acquisition of territory from Mexico, this question would have been academic. But, with the prospects of new territory to be governed by Congress, people had to take a stand. And the Wilmot Proviso proved to be that stand, for many Northerners. The problem with that stand, and what made it so controversial, was that it was a recipe for conflict with the South. The North was, in effect, asking for the South to concede everything and get nothing in return. In the conflicts that would follow in the years following the Proviso, both the Whigs and the Democrats would see their parties torn asunder for the forces of sectionalism. The Southern response to the Proviso became the mirror response, namely that slave property was as valid as any other form of property and that Congress had no right to interfere with it in any of the territories. Between these two extremes, were partisans of Compromise, some who supported letting the inhabitants of the territories decide (this was called popular sovereignty), and others who supported extending the Missouri Compromise line.But, after the compromises failed, after the Supreme Court adopted the Southern position in the Dredd Scott decision, thereby infuriating the North, and after Lincoln was elected, a president from a purely sectional party dedicated to the abolition of slavery, the South decided that it no longer wanted any part of such a union. Secession came, and the the war was on.

I am not rich, my parents were upper middle class until their divorce, when my mother became lower middle class (and my siblings and I by extension). These are the things that were taught that you can’t lose. These are the things that I’ve carried with me as I’ve climbed through education and privilege, back into the upper middle class. I am neither rich or wealthy, but I’ve been around people who are both, these are things that “scream” upper class:Diet: Most upper class people understand that health is wealth and the first and most important barrier to health issues is diet. I was raised vegan, in the 80s. We didn’t eat processed meat, cheese, or milk. We ate soy milk before it needed to be non-GMO. We had a garden. My mother fed us balanced meals and I’ve never had a Twinkie/Hostess product, pasteurized cheese, canned/potted meat, Kool-Aid/Random off-brand colorful fruit punch, or most candy. Basically nothing they advertised on kid programs. As an adult I began eating meat, and even when I was a poor-ish college/grad school student, I bought organic meat or just ate beans/rice/veggies. I learned how to cook.Medical health: Piggy-backing on the above. We went to the doctor regularly for checkups, but we were rarely ever sick. That said, my parents were a doctor/nurse, so we had healthcare at home. We went to the dentist regularly and mostly drank water, so we never had cavities.Education: We were home-schooled and then attended private schools. When my parents divorced and I attended a “top rated” magnet school, I was shocked to realize how much public schools don’t teach. Our parents had an extensive library and we read and were educated at home. I was skipped two grades because I was so advanced just from reading at home and tested into the 6th grade at 8. You speak differently— we speak with no accent, no one listening to us would know where we are from, it’s a gift. Upper middle class parents understand that a child who is only educated at school is an uneducated child.Travel: Our parents regularly took us on week-long, month-long, and summers-long jaunts to places of interest to them. We learned by experience. It’s something that stayed with me and even when I was on my own in college, I learned to spend on experiences, not things. We ate at very nice restaurants and even as children, could order what we liked. Our palates were quite sophisticated and people didn’t always believe we would eat what was ordered, but we always did. Our parents taught us to expand our horizons and we can speak intelligently about many different cultures and locales. We took our sons (4 and NB) to the UK this year and are planning a trip to the Australia/New Zealand area. It’s important to us to continue that tradition. For wealthy people, it’s REGULAR travel and to any locale that they choose. For us, it’s an option, but as we’re merely upper middle class, it’s planned, strategic, and budgeted-for!Finances: Our parents didn’t talk to us about money, but many of our friends’ parents did. We learned that some of our classmates knew of their trust funds, had huge grandparent-funded savings’ accounts for college/graduate school, and their parents were prepared to pay for their weddings/ provide down-payment assistance. I listened and learned and its why I have an IRA, a SEP-IRA for my business, and had a brokerage account as soon as I had an income. This was before 529s and it was just assumed that the parents would pay for college and that they would attend the absolute best school that they could get into (or an alma mater). State schools were rarely considered seriously except Penn, NYU, and the Cal State biggies (ETA: Yes I know that Penn and NYU aren’t actually state schools, but at that age, I thought they were and these were the names I heard, mostly in the context of legacy admissions) … Basically money is a tool, not something you have and multiple income streams are the only way to build wealth. To be truly rich, you must be living on passive income!Freebies/Deals: The more you have, the more you get. Utilizing rewards’ points, credit card points for travel, membership club freebies, and connections to not pay for things is standard. As I’ve said before, there is nothing rich people like more than free things. I still love haggling over the price/features of new (to me, we buy used generally) cars. It’s just something I love to do. The satisfaction of getting a good deal is just something that can’t be beat.Social Connection: Something I learned in private school is that everyone knows everyone else and, for the most part most jobs, acceptances, scholarships, etc…were done behind the scenes through connections. This is hard to leverage as an outsider and I watched as families with less social capital fell further and further behind (we are black and an unusual christian denomination so we didn’t go to most events and did not benefit from the most part, similarly to our African, east Indian, and middle-eastern family friends who were similarly excluded out of racism and prejudice). This was the South, in the 90s, but it was still rampant. We all used our education to form our own groups that are able to leverage us into opportunities as well, so are able to see on a micro-scale what we are missing out on that is rampant in the upper classes.Values: You learn to buy quality over quantity; to take care of what you have; to send thank-you notes promptly; to utilize good manners; how to throw a dinner party and do a seating chart (and it’s not hard!); how to behave at any given social situation; and harder things such as how to leverage social cues ← Except for those suffering from spectrum disorders who may be unable to learn this, it’s one of the more valuable skills to learn. Your parents HAVE TIME to spend with you and they teach you things; and, if they can’t, they pay someone who can. We learned the importance of giving back and were taught to tithe (give charitably 10% of our income) and to volunteer regularly.Entertainment: We rarely went to the movies or parks, but we spent tons of time at the library, museums, cultural programs and exhibits, and we had season passes to DisneyLand. Our parents taught us not to waste our time, but to spend it on things that were edifying. We were taught to read a new book every week. With a newborn, I’m down to one a month and it’s depressing.EDITED TO ADD EXPERIENCES: We were all trained musicians and had music and voice lessons from 5; we all took horseback riding lessons and can ski and sail. I’m sure there are more, but these seem to regularly amaze people.I’m sure there is more, but I’ve TRIED to be as concise as I could…Basically, the things above with variations based on the parents’ values and cultural upbringing, will come together to create a person that projects an aura of sophistication, class, and breeding. That cannot be faked.Edited (AGAIN) to add: WOW, this is my first answer with 1,000 upvotes and I’m shocked and grateful. Thanks for reading and I hope it helps someone.