Success 2!!

Charlie Mc Donnell (youtube star) is now promoting this blog!

He's always been uneasy about promoting things on his youtube channel so of course he has been subtle about spreading awareness about me but the recommendation is unavoidable in his most recent video! He most definitely named my blog!

I admit to having to re-watch the video just to hear him say it again and check that 1.He got it right and 2. He remembered the units, which he did - I have now been inspired to always always remember my units now (unless I forget...)

Okay, maybe I just slipped into 'deluded teenage girl' mode... But seriously it's a pretty good physics video - check it out ;) (I do realise 2/3 of my followers already subscribe to Charlie!)

Also I realise I am copying one of my favourite friends and blogger by making a post related to her future husband and so as to remain as true to girl code as possible I have named him her future husband and linked to her post here - (which is also useless because 2/3 of my followers already follow or are her?!) she's great!!

Success!!

My Physics teacher gave me an application form for a Physics Academy in London during the Summer and although I know perfectly well 'why I would like to be accepted into the academy', that didn't mean that I wasn't trying to find a way to write it for hours and hours (with help from my wonderful Dad!) It's so hard! Apparently 'how cool would it be if I was excepted into an 'Academy'isn't a sufficient reason...

But as it happens, today I found out that I made it into the academy!! It's going to be so great! Now that it is months away I can be excited but I know perfectly well that by at least a week before I go I will be taken over my nerves and not want to go, then I'll get there and hopefully love it so much I don't want to leave! That's what usually happens.. Anyway, back to excitement - I was accepted into the academy!! That sentence is too awesome!!

This is how I imagine it will be. Hope I'm not disappointed...

*Title*

We've been doing a bit of particle physics in school recently and my mind is blown. I mean seriously, it's so much to comprehend! On the way to school this morning (for another day of physics!) I caught myself thinking about it and it's so hard to believe! And then the more I thought about it, I realised that I actually find it quite hard to imagine there are even atoms but I've had quite a few years to get used to the idea and it seems quite normal to me now. I wonder if one day it will be obvious for fundamental particles to exist with strange (in both senses of the word!) characteristics and forces with invisible exchange particles and everything around us, everything in us to once have been squished into the tiniest space? I hope not. I want it to always be mind boggling and special.

However when we learnt about how 'fundamental particles have colour' (except not really because it is a variable property that is more of a way of description rather than a physical description)it did cause me to wonder if I might be slightly too sane to actually stand a chance of understanding particle physics... Although my sanity has been questioned in the past... Oh well, sacrifices must be made and I always thought sanity was over rated anyway!

Death by Particle Physics

Even though it's the Easter holidays I had to go into school today and do physics for 6 hours. We were doing fundamental particles, big bang and then space stuff which would have been awesome except it was so much that it made my brain hurt. So I got home and went straight to sleep which was probably a bad idea because I had the worst nightmare. I was drowning in an ocean of fundamental particles. And I know, I know that doesn't sound so terrible since they are so tiny but they were scratching my throat and making me gag and it felt so real! The worst part is that I was trying to remember what we had learnt but I couldn't understand what they were!! Physics is really starting to get to me...

Is it Too Soon for Another Brian Post?

I never watch Danny's house but I flicked onto it for a few seconds and BAM! There was Brian!! He is everywhere!! In my cupboard, on my TV, on my computer and in my school (well in the corridors... Well on the walls...) but hey, I'm not complaining ;)

p.s. Sorry the picture is so blurry!

My last Brian related post can be found here.

New Project

So, I have started a Physics wall! Well, its currently a Physics door because then I can close it away when people come over if I need to.. But I'm hoping to stick at it long enough to expand onto a wall!

And no - before anyone starts trying to be funny - it isn't just an excuse to have a poster of Brian! I already explained my feelings in regards to Brian here.

Reasons to Like Physics Number Three

There are some pretty awesome words!! Sometimes when me and my Physics class (there's only 6 of us) are talking about Physicsy things people think we are speaking another language and I'm not going to lie, for a few seconds I feel infinitely cool.

Some examples of great words are:

1. Spaghettification - when something falls into a black hole and the gravity closest is a lot higher so the object is stretched like spaghetti

2. Supersymetry - as previously discussed (I have made it my life's goal to actually understand this - well one of my life goals)
3. Strangeness - So something is happening with particle physics that you don't understand? Call it a new characteristic called strangeness and you're sorted ;)

And those are just the S words!


Reasons to like Physics number Two can be found in this post here.

Super Moon was Super!

Well the super moon definitely didn't disappoint! I wore my glasses the whole way home (I usually sleep!) and just stared at it!! It was bigger and brighter than I have ever seen! What was even better was that I knew I was definitely staring at the right thing, I'm not entirely sure it actually was Jupiter that I was staring at  when I was looking for it last time!

Ps. Due to the suggestion of a loyal follower I looked at this - wow! It is at Glastonbury and I think the moon looks even bigger because it is closer to the horizon and therefore easier for our eye to compare and understand its size!

I first wrote about this super moon in this post here.

Super Moon!!

Since the moon has an elliptical orbit sometimes it is closer to us than other times. This makes it seem 14% bigger (though it's hard to tell) and 30% brighter and when this coincides with a full moon it's called a super moon and it's happening TONIGHT!! Tonight the moon will only be 221567 miles away!! And it's not even cloudy so we should be able to see it well!!


The closeness of the moon should only increase sea tides by a few cm and although there is no proven link between human behaviour and the moon the word lunacy is derived from the Roman goddess of the moon Luna so beware!!

My Introduction to String Theory

I've heard the term 'String Theory' bouncing around for a while now and I finally decided that I need to know what it is actually about.

Basically, it is insane! It goes against anything I have ever learnt or believe in the world around me and that feels pretty awesome actually!! The basic definition that I found is that string theory is an attempt to unite quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity (since we are trying to find a theory of everything) by saying that fundamental particles aren't point-like but actually 1 dimensional string structures which vibrate. Worse still is that for this to work, other than our current 4 dimensional (length width height and time) there needs to be 6 other dimensions somewhere?! This theory isn't finalised or fully accepted but its pretty fascinating! Plus I found the word 'supersymmetric' - I'm too afraid to find out what it means in case it isn't as awesome as it sounds!

Ps. I finally built up the courage to google - the word was too awesome for me - wikepedia says that it 'is a symmetry that relates elementary particles of one spin to other particles that differ by half a unit of spin and are known as superpartners.' it then went on to talk about bosons (basically the only word I recognised in a sentence) and I felt a little out of my depth! For now I'm better to be content with a little bit of ignorance I think!

This is what google images gives you for string theory, looks like the Spirograph drawings I used to draw!