Graphene = Physics Magic

It seems to get better and better every day. Every other news report that comes out describes it as something that outlasts, outshines, and outruns every other material out there. But first.... what is it? 

Graphene is a 2-dimensional sheet of carbon molecules, packed close together in a hexagon pattern reminiscent of chicken-wire (something a surprising number of nanotech specialists are familiar with). It’s a fairly recent development in physics, not because scientists didn’t know single sheets existed, but because they didn’t know they could be isolated from the bigger 3D graphite. Theoretically, 2D crystals should not exist; the thinner a film of atoms gets, the lower its melting point (remember that temperature is simply the vibration of atoms. The faster the vibration, the more unstable our chicken wire can get). By the time you get to 2D, there should be an indefinite melting point. Hence, no graphene. 

But obviously, science messed up.

Antimatter: everything you'll never be

If any of you are familiar with Dan Brown’s book Angels and Demons, or if you've been around any physics anything in the past few years, then you might know a little bit about something called antimatter. You get one thing, grab its natural opposite, smash them together, and things explode. But really, what is antimatter? How does that even happen? Well, I'm glad you asked.

As common in almost all of the most interesting physics concepts, the science was predicted before it was discovered. It was no different with antimatter. In 1928, Paul Dirac published a paper outlining the connections between Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which worked on a large scale, and Erwin Schrodinger’s equation of quantum physics, which worked on a small scale. Now, understand: Dirac was freakin’ brilliant. His mathematics was spot-on, and his explanation connecting these two branches of physics made perfect sense if one analyzed his equations. 

Perfect Sense.