A 16 Year Old's Guide to (kinda) Physics

To those who feel their appetites are insatiable, As someone who is both:                            A: Constantly filled with anxiety over the future, for example: college .   And B: An avid food fanatic, I was pleasantly surprised to see the University of Chicago’s essay prompt, questioning the legitimacy of unlimited food despite the limited amount of matter in the universe, denouncing the staple of all buffets, American food chains, etc: the “All-You-Can-Eat”. Hypothetically, if I could eat an infinite amount of breadsticks, how would Olive Garden supply the food to quench my starvation? In the wise words of Raina Hatcher: time to physics the shit out of this problem. Pictured above: me utilizing my force lightning to force Olive Garden to feed me more breadsticks. (jk, its Palpatine, could you tell?) To grasp the situation,...

To those who want to beat the shit out of the glass box with a hammer, It’s pretty common to think that because you’re a shitty student, you’re automatically some dumbass. I blame that on humanity’s glass box.  We sometimes make the assumption that our brain is limited, often through the means of calling ourselves “idiots who can’t do simple algebra”, or denoting our ability to function as human beings. This measurement of one’s “mental capacity”, however, can be redefined as our own limiting factor: one that limits individuals and society as a whole. We base the measurement of how intelligent somebody is typically through their academic performance or knowledge on certain topics, such as politics, science, etc. Or rather, we measure their intelligence by simply administering an IQ test. But, who is to say that either of these options is an accurate reflection of someone’s “intellectual capacity”? Alternatively, who’s to say that our idea of intelligence is real whatsoeve...

Hello my love, Do you know where Peru is? N o really, where is it? A short while ago when Nicole and I began this blog, Nicole was sitting at her hand-built PC watching our views start to accumulate. We thought it was quite cool that the viewing was mapped, so we could determine how global the reach of our b ullshit was. Expecting most to originate from the United States - due to our blog being three hours old plus the (current perception of) time being 2 AM- we were quite excited to discover we had 3 views from Peru. In the present, Peru is neck and neck with ‘Unknown Region’ both reaching a whopping 5 visits. Midst our vaguely unfounded burst of glee we realized neither of us had any clue where the fuck Peru is. You think we would, we didn’t. Geography has always been my worst subject as I’m directionally challenged and have -professionally- diagnosed shit memory, but I have no explanation for Nicole. After confiding in google, the all-knowing internet god, I still was not s...

Fellow Humans, I began to write this piece about sitting on my roof… something about moonbows and how the moon looked like a hologram in the mist… Before deciding you likely don’t care. Instead, I am going to simply begin rambling about perception and reality. Also fair warning, I have a bad habit of writing in an unnecessarily confusing manner - doing my best not to, but will probably fail. Stay with me. For attempt two I begin: Is anything real? What is the nature of reality? Do you have a ‘mind’, or are you just a physical body? Incase this piece becomes dreadfully long, I shall spoil the ending… we still have no fucking clue. Since the beginning of Epistemology (the philosophy of knowledge, the study of knowing) the philosophies of Reductive Physicalism and Substance Dualism have dueled. (this is a bad pun but I refuse to apologize) Physicalism vs. Dualism Let us jump right in; (Reductive) Physicalism is the philosophical position that everything which exists is nothing more th...

Dear a gravitating and dope reader,  The American high school educational system seems to always find very miniscule ways of being oh-so-very incorrect. I can’t tell you if it’s a result of normalized vocabulary or plain human stupidity (or I could just be really critical and nitpicky, giving the illusion of incorrectness in my eyes), but we must get one fact straight before we move on: gravity is not a force. I repeat: gravity is not a force. This common misconception makes me scream internally.  Albert Einstein created the “Theory of Relativity” as a general descriptor for the unification of “special relativity” and “general relativity”. Contrary to Newtonian physics, which describes gravity as a force, Einstein instead theorizes that this supposed “force” of gravity is in fact a byproduct of the curvature of spacetime. An object with this much mass on a cold blanket would probably have the gravitational pull of a black hole. Or, conversely, me after eating 6...

D ear the curious, Humans, when deprived of answers, will concoct their own explanations to the unknown. Some questions remain for pondering. Why are we here? Were we the creation of God, or rather just a random scientific anomaly? What happens when we die? For some, these answers lie with religion; fate, belief, a creator. Religion gives some people purpose. Others, however, look to science for answers. These people crave proof.  The “Religion” page on Wikipedia is the longest I’ve ever seen. It’s longer than the list of reasons I make for myself to procrastinate. There’s an estimated 4.2 thousand different religions in the world, each with the same general purpose: to guide people, to give them answers. People derive their lifestyles from these religions; even for those who don’t necessarily believe, religion still has influence in their life.  The influence of religion in society is unavoidable. Think of the most prominent religions in the world today: Christiani...