Science Wednesday

I am a geek. Last night a group of my friends gathered around the TV at 8pm to watch the Nova special on String Theory. I wasn't so enthused about watching a science documentary at first, but the show was really good. I didn't have to go sit in the corner and color pretty pictures while the grown-ups talked about grown-up stuff.

As a gal who's never taken a physics class, I have no idea how to explain what the f string theory is besides saying that it's a new way of looking at what everything is made of. I'm not saying I'm a string theorist, but I find the whole idea so interesting. It could be the link that brings quantum mechanics and general relativity together. Wait! Don't nod off yet! Go read the Nova website and maybe it'll make more sense.

Yesterday I was looking around on the internet trying to find some website to dumb it down enough for me to even remotely understand it. Most of the time I found websites that were so confusing that I couldn't understand the first sentence. I had the clueless blank stare.

But the documentary was good at teaching those of us non-science kids a little of the fundamentals of general relativity and quantum mechanics before diving into the really confusing stuff. I never knew what that stuff was, and now I have a bit more of a clue. And then once it dives into the deeper stuff, you just find yourself going "Whoa" -- not just because it's really involved, but also because it's really deep. Sounds lame, but that's how I describe it.

So if you get a chance to see this string theory special, definitely watch it. I think next Tuesday night is the second part of it. I highly recommend it.

The other installation of Heather's Science Wednesday is this. Cool. I hope it's not cloudy tonight, maybe I can see some auroras. Although I do live in a city, so the light pollution may prevent that. If anyone sees anything, let me know!

So, you have your science topics now. Discuss.