It's All Relative. Really.

In the wonderful world of Physics, everything can be categorized with four adjectives: big, small, fast, slow.

Physics is pretty much like Sesame
Street, in that sense.

Seriously, though, these qualifiers are what physicists focus on when evaluating anything. In fact, there’s a branch of physics for each combination, and unbeknownst to you (or perhaps fully beknownst), we’ve already covered a lot of these concepts ourselves:

Slow and Big:	Classical Physics (The Tides, Gravity)
Slow and Small:	Quantum Mechanics (Quantum Dots)
Fast and Big:	General Relativity (Time Travel)
Fast and Small:	Quantum Field Theory (Higgs Boson)

The fascinating thing is that one man almost single-handedly made all of these possible: Albert Einstein. In 1905, Einstein published a set of papers establishing his ideas on Special Relativity, considered by far the most groundbreaking theory in modern physics. They revolutionized the way scientists thought of the Universe, and made further developments in both science and technology possible. This is all great news, and I’m sure you’re jumping out of your chair with joy, but… what did his papers actually say? What makes Special Relativity so special?

Nope. 

The God Particle

The Higgs boson.
...I don't even know.

You may have heard of the “Higgs boson particle” in the news lately. It’s the thing that CERN is working so hard on this year, sending out news reports daily, it seems. In reality, the Higgs boson is one of the only theoretical fundamental particles that hasn’t been observed yet, and even more important, it’s the key to a grand unification of Physics theory.

But... what is it?

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.