Physicist: This was an interesting back-and-forth, so the original questions are italicized. What was the energy at the start of the universe and how did it create matter? If the question is “how m…

The original question was: “Furthermore, you say, science will teach men (although in my opinion a superfluity) that they have not, in fact, and never have had, either will or fancy, and are …

Physicist: A greenhouse is a little like a “light pump” that works because of the picky transparency of glass. The hotter something is, the shorter the wavelength of the light it radiat…

Mathematician: That depends on what you mean by “universe.”  Here’s a framing: A circle of radius R centered at a point P is the set of all points in the plane with distance R fro…

The original question from “A” was: I’m reading Sean Carroll’s book Something Deeply Hidden, which is entirely about Many Worlds, and I’m following along for the most …

Physicist: Why bother going out to mine asteroids?  Why not stay home?  The answer is a little grim.  Consider Easter Island, or Iceland, or England; each are isolated places that were once covered…

Physicist: No.  But for all practical purposes, yes. “Fusion” is a pair of atoms coming together and fusing (hence the name) into a single, larger atom.  In a chemical bond, like hydrog…

Physicist: Probably very likely!  Probably! When we look out into the universe we find that on galactic scales and up that most of the mass in the universe is “dark”.  Based on how gala…

Physicist: Quite. This is a surprisingly subtle question.  The problem is, we can’t see the entire universe.  Imagine standing in a vast prairie or floating on a ship at sea.  Looking around …

The original question was: I find the double slit experiment super interesting and have lots of questions about it. But here’s one. What if the particles you send through the slits are consci…

Physicist: If you’ve made it through the last fifteen lectures, you’ll enjoy the last installment.  It’s about using entanglement as a tool to measure, communicate, control, and u…

Physicist: The last five chapters should have left you terrified.  These should leave you inspired.  With all of the mathematical tools established, these lectures get into some of the remarkable t…

Physicist: The quantum computation course is still where all of my time is going.  Here’s five more lessons, each more profound than the last. Lecture 6: Density Matrices Lecture 7: Clas…

Physicist: I’ve been a little busy to post much here for a while, but you may be interested in what I’m working on, so here it is.  I’m teaching an introductory course on quantum …

The original question was: If there is life on any other planets, is it highly likely to be Carbon based than any other elements, for instance Silicon? I am asking this question because, almost all…

Physicist: We’re definitely missing something, but we’re always missing something.  One of the most famous quotes about quantum physics, often used in lieu of a shrug, is due to St…

Physicist: Mostly awesome.  Eventually. Recently, some of the folk at Google claimed to have achieved “quantum supremacy” (here’s what they had to say about it).  Google has, like…

Physicist: This has become a whole thing.  Although it has shown up in a lot of incarnations throughout history, the most recent is something like this: Computers are getting better all the time an…

The original question was: If you have a lump of radioactive material with a half life of say 10,000 years, then how come it could start steadily decaying right away? Why wouldn’t everything be rel…

Physicist: We imagine interplanetary spacecraft as massive, expensive rockets, but the Moon changes that.  Spacecraft built and launched from the Moon don’t have to have huge boosters; even t…