The truly great thing about physics is that it is universal. Literally. What we discover about physics here in the United States is true in South Africa, and what is discovered in South Africa can be learned just as well in Vietnam, and it all holds true on Jupiter or in the Andromeda Galexy. Physics … Continue reading Cutting Through
Month: June 2018
Expressing Your Mind Through Writing
Writing is a great skill that helps open our own thoughts to ourselves and gives readers access to the mind of another person. When we are writing something, we take thoughts that are whirling around in our mind at a million miles per hour and give them shape and structure. We take those thoughts and … Continue reading Expressing Your Mind Through Writing
Creating History
Physics often times does not align with what we expect. But really, there is no reason that the physics we experience here on our planet with our limited senses should lead us to perfectly predict how physics and reality play out across the universe. Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn is an excellent physics book because it … Continue reading Creating History
Only Referencing the Inside
The problem of physics and the universe being relative to observers haunts Amanda Gefter in her book Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn. Throughout the book she writes about the challenge of understanding physics and finding a set, definitive, absolute reality within physics. Motion, matter, electromagnetic waves, particles, and time all seem to change relative to an … Continue reading Only Referencing the Inside
A View from Nowhere
Physics is all around us, taking place within our coffee mug, within jet airplane engines, and on the roof above our head. Everywhere we go, physics goes, and everywhere we look, we see physics. Across the universe, magnified at the end of an electron microscope, and throughout time, physics connects everything there is. Amanda Gefter … Continue reading A View from Nowhere
Violating General Relativity
Physics today is hard and incredibly head-spinningly confusing. That does not mean, however, that it cannot still be fun and presented in a way that makes us think deeply about the nature of the universe while still enjoying the science of how our universe exists and behaves. Amanda Gefter did not set out to be … Continue reading Violating General Relativity
Spacetime as a Wave Function
Amanda Gefter dives into complex physics in her book Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn, and helps us better understand the challenges of modern physics research today. When we look out into space we see stars and planets and if we look really closely with telescopes we see asteroids, galaxies, and lots of dust floating through space. … Continue reading Spacetime as a Wave Function
What Reality Ought To Be
The universe is filled with paradoxes, but often times those paradoxes seem to be the result of how our brains and thinking work. Amanda Gefter addresses this in her book, Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn. In the book Gefter describes how she found her way to a career as a science journalist, something she never set … Continue reading What Reality Ought To Be
Measuring the Universe from the Inside
The human mind is an amazing tool, but it does go astray from time to time and some of our logical fallacies trip us up. The world of physics, particularly the physicists who are pushing the edge of physics knowledge, run into a lot of challenges that clash with the way we typically think about … Continue reading Measuring the Universe from the Inside
Benefitting from Doing Good for Others
A quote from Marcus Aurelius that I keep returning to is “When thou hast done a good act and another has received it, why dost thou still look for a third thing besides these, as fools do, either to have the reputation of having done a good act or to obtain a return?” The quote reminds … Continue reading Benefitting from Doing Good for Others