Built on Facts

Snap! The light has gone on in your head, and you have a brilliant and revolutionary new theory of physics. But you’re not a professional physicist, you’re just an amateur who may or may not have any physics training at all. How will you get your ideas recognized?
Here’s the problem. There’s thousands [...]

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Obama and McCain, huh? Glad that’s over with. I was starting to think we might be better off if the entire city of DC just slid into the Potomac. But now that it’s over, I’m sure the TV pundits, newspaper editorialists, and bloggers will be back to discussing the latest progress in [...]

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In a vacuum, the speed of light is a universal constant: 299,792,458 m/s exactly. For light traveling through a substance like water or glass the speed is lower. The light hasn’t actually slowed down. Instead, the interaction with each successive atom in the material takes a little bit of time and so [...]

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So you’re sitting in your car at a red light. It turns green and you stomp on the gas. 0 to 60 in what, 9 seconds for an average car? Probably so. But that acceleration doesn’t stay constant forever. Air resistance and engine inefficiency eventually brings you to a maximum [...]

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Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.
- Isaac Newton
The moon orbits the earth, held precisely by a delicate balance between gravity and inertia. A piece of lint clings to a shirt, held tightly by a delicate balance between electric charges and fields. Laughter [...]

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