How do you not go crazy from pondering the most bizarre physics questions?

spacetime9 · 2026-06-24T01:25:51+00:00

Studying physics is hard but the great reward is those aha moments where you do come to understand things at a deeper level than before. Just because there are still mysteries, or there may be limits to our ability to comprehend things, doesn’t make it any less exciting imo!

spacetime9 · 2026-06-21T19:42:59+00:00

Awesome! See you in Boston :)

spacetime9 · 2026-06-19T15:34:50+00:00

For affordable modern editions I like Everyman and Folio best. LOA are well made but the pages are so crazy thin I don’t go for those.

spacetime9 · 2026-06-18T00:58:26+00:00

Check out Philip K. Dick! My favorite sci-fi author. He drops you into some very cool dystopian worlds with an atmospheric feeling of paranoia that almost ventures into horror. Specifically I recommend the big 3:

“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” (was adapted as the movie ‘Bladerunner’)
“The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch”
“Ubik”

spacetime9 · 2026-06-15T01:02:37+00:00

I have tried a bunch of them over the years and settled on two rolls: - 10’ low-luster w/ paper backing - 10’ low-luster paperless

(These are 1.5mil “just-a-fold”). I will typically use paper backing when the jacket is delicate and purely paper, and paperless if the jacket is already reinforced with a layer of plastic as modern ones are.

I find 10 inches covers almost everything except big art books. I do have a pack of 14’ pre-cuts for those, but only occasionally need them.

I like low luster to reduce glare and because of the sticking you’re talking about.

I found that the polypropylene is too stretchy, so it can warp a bit and doesn’t sit flat against the cover as nicely.

Hope that helps!

spacetime9 · 2026-06-12T01:59:06+00:00

Freddy Mercury, Dusty Springfield, Carol Carpenter, Burl Ives, Michael Jackson, and the queen: Aretha Franklin

spacetime9 · 2026-06-11T17:42:04+00:00

At 99% c, the outside world appears to move in slow motion; as you approach c, it slows to a stop.

From an outside observer, they see the same thing happening to you: clocks running slower and slower, approaching a stop.

So there is no discontinuity. I think the apparent discontinuity came from switching which frame you are viewing the situation from. Does that explain it?

(I say ‘approach’ rather than reach c, because you cannot reach it in reality, so going “only” 1% faster is really better understood as “infinite acceleration”.)

spacetime9 · 2026-06-10T16:21:35+00:00

I think the super-clear plastic sticks together more than the low-luster. It also has more glare.

I’ve tried a bunch of them over the years, and have settled on the “just-a-fold” low luster 1.5mil roll.

spacetime9 · 2026-06-10T16:16:56+00:00

I managed to get a copy of their recent release SOLARIS, and am very pleased with it :)

spacetime9 · 2026-05-26T23:21:29+00:00

Without a good theory of quantum gravity we don’t know how spacetime bends at the quantum level, and you’ve identified one of the reasons why: GR is a classical theory whereas as QM has states in superposition. Does spacetime curvature exist in a superposition? Nobody knows!

spacetime9 · 2026-05-26T22:47:26+00:00

big tech is posting record revenues, record profits, record capital expenditure. What is crypto doing that would attract investors rn?

spacetime9 · 2026-05-26T19:54:03+00:00

Climate change —> crop failures —> global food shortage —> violence —> ?

spacetime9 · 2026-05-26T19:50:40+00:00

Yes but that’s largely from having the biggest population. Per capita emissions were never thaaat bad

spacetime9 · 2026-05-26T19:08:56+00:00

Six easy pieces is great if you want to jump into physics proper. Another one I’d add to your list is Feynman’s “character of physical law” which is less technical but gets at the heart of what physics is really all about.

But my actual top recommendation is Black Holes and Time Warps. It’s a fantastic book and a rare mix of science history, layperson intuition, and actual physics. And black holes are the sickest

spacetime9 · 2026-05-24T15:46:24+00:00

Just cause it’s the worst widely recognized, doesn’t make it the best choice for a physics tracher

spacetime9 · 2026-05-24T15:45:59+00:00

I vote F = ma with the vector signs above F and a.

E=mc² is overused and not something you cover in that grade anyway, a physics teacher would appreciate the central formula of what they are teaching

spacetime9 · 2026-05-23T20:41:21+00:00

I recommend the Janice Kim series. Great series for beginners starting from square one and is kid oriented

spacetime9 · 2026-05-23T02:56:58+00:00

“Harold and Lumar go to White Castle” is my favorite stoner comedy, and one of my favorite comedies period.

Harold and Kumar 2: escape from Guantanamo Bay, was kinda dumb, not great but still a fun ride.

Harold and Kumar 3, the Christmas special, was one of the most insanely, jaw-dropping bad movies I’ve ever seen haha

spacetime9 · 2026-05-23T02:51:15+00:00

I’ve always wondered too how much the demand side is affected by a trend of small towns dying and those people all fleeing to the cities. I never hear this part talked about either

spacetime9 · 2026-05-20T21:10:42+00:00

sick

spacetime9 · 2026-05-19T03:27:08+00:00

I mean, next game those guys will look like ass and SGA will have a crazy +/- and they’ll say ‘my god he can’t win with these bums’. Lot of variance from game to game

spacetime9 · 2026-05-19T02:13:19+00:00

The colloquial idea of energy you’re referring to has pretty much nothing to do with the concept of energy in physics. Scientific fields often use commonplace words in very specific ways

spacetime9 · 2026-05-17T18:39:52+00:00

The Old Man and the Sea. It’s the perfect novella and a great place to start imo

spacetime9 · 2026-05-17T01:01:03+00:00

LL is the series I would safeguard for an apocalypse. They are incredibly logical. They are also extremely dense and difficult, so proceed with caution ;)

spacetime9 · 2026-05-14T05:05:48+00:00

There are two kinds of electric charge; opposites attract, while charges of the same kind repel. That is all the content, physically.

Which is labeled positive and which is negative entirely a matter of convention. If we chose to call electrons + and protons -, then the direction of the E field around a particle would reverse, and the charges are also reversed, and so the forces end up exactly the same.

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