Oh I have just passed a most happy hour watching Brian Cox explain how atoms work. No, really. You may think you don’t have an hour to watch a video about a subject that you think you’ve never been interested in about knowledge you think you’ll never use, but just give him at least ten minutes of your time and see if you’re not infected by his enthusiasm.
I think my favorite moment is when he gets Jonathan Ross to help him calculate the probability that all the atoms in a diamond will leap five centimeters to the left. I’m sure a guy like Cox does this kind of math dozens of times a day, but I’m equally sure Ross doesn’t. Remember how to reckon numerators and denominators? No, neither do I.
Professor Brian Cox: A Night With the Stars
If I tell you one of the stars is Simon Pegg, would that make you want to watch it?
The best theory we have to describe matter is quantum theory.
Now, I understand why quantum theory can seem a bit odd. It makes odd statements. It says, for example, that things can be in many places at once. In fact, technically, it says that things can be in an infinite number of places at once. It says that the subatomic building blocks of our bodies are constantly shifting in response to events that happened at the edge of the known universe, a billion light years somewhere over there. This is all true, but that isn’t a license to talk utter drivel.
Quantum theory might seem weird or mysterious, but it describes the world with higher precision than the laws of physics laid down by Newton, and it’s one of the foundations of our understanding of nature. It doesn’t, therefore, allow mystical healing or ESP or any other manifestation of new-age woo-woo into the pantheon of the possible. Always remember that quantum theory is physics, and physics is usually done by people without star signs tattooed on their bottoms.
This Is Drivel 