Here’s A Lil Timelapse Of Some Feb Weekly Spreads !! : )

And God said, "Behold! I have created the fourth primordial force: the weak interaction!"

And the angels all clapped and nodded politely, and there was a long silence; and finally Verchiel, the Angel of Grace, spoke up and asked, "Er, what exactly does it do, O Fashioner?"

And God said, "What do you mean, 'what does it do?' It's the fourth fundamental force of the universe."

And Verchiel said, "You mentioned that. Um. But it's just that the other three sort of have a brand, you know? Gravity helps build large-scale structures, acts over vast cosmic distances, shapes time and space. The strong force is secret, hidden, binding together quarks and all that. Electromagnetism, very cool stuff, somewhere in between. We're all big fans of the whole magnetic monopole double bluff, very clever. But, er. What does this 'weak interaction' do?"

And God said, "It mediates radioactive decay. Sort of."

And Verchiel said, "Radioactive decay? All radioactive decay?"

And God said, "No. Just some kinds."

And Zephaniel, the Chief of the Ishim spoke, and he said, "A whole independent force just to mediate some kinds of radioactive decay?"

And God said, "Well. Not totally independent. Technically it's related to electromagnetism."

And Zephaniel said, "Wait, it's not even a real force?"

And God said, "It's totally a real force. It's just that it's one aspect of a combined electromagnetic and weak force. An electro-weak force, if you will."

And Metatron, the Celestial Scribe, scratched his head at this, but said nothing.

And Cambiel, the Angel of Transformation, said, "Maybe you can walk us through it from the top."

And God Sighed an immense Sigh, and said, "All right, fine.

"So the way it works is that all of space and time is permeated by a field that has imaginary mass."

And Cambiel said, "Imaginary mass, O Generous Provider?"

And God said, "Yes, imaginary mass. It's tachyonic, d'you see?"

And Sarathiel, the Angel of Discipline, said, "Wait a minute, I thought we agreed nothing was going to travel faster than light? All that 'c' business and the whole Lorentz transformation thing. What's happening with that?"

And God said, "Let me finish. The field is tachyonic. The particles in the field all move slower than light."

And Sarathiel had to think about this for a second.

And God said, "The point is, a field with imaginary mass has a non-zero vacuum expectation value."

And this really gave Sarathiel trouble, since he had never been very good at math.

And God, seeing this, went back to explain. "Most fields, like the electromagnetic field, have no effect when they are at their lowest energy state. It's like they're not there at all. If you give a field imaginary mass, then it vanishes only when it's at a very high energy state, and at a low energy state, it has a nonzero value everywhere."

And Sarathiel nodded, but he was confused, because he didn't understand why God would create such a thing.

But Verchiel thought he saw where God was going with this, and he was amazed.

"Truly, you are cunning beyond measure, O Only One Certainly Sound and Genuine in Truth! Only now do I understand your design! For in order to make the universe homogenous and isotropic, it is necessary that all large-scale fluctuations in temperature and mass must be evened out early in the history of the cosmos; and therefore, you have designed a field which will rapidly expand space after the Big Bang, many orders of magnitude in brief moments, and then swiftly and spontaneously decay as it gives up the energy it began with, giving rise to radiation and particles of all kinds as it does, which will condense into the material universe! It is a wonder to behold."

And God said, "What? No. I mean I did, but this isn't the inflaton field I'm talking about. This is something else."

And Verchiel said, "Wait, it's not?"

And God said, "No, I'm going to use a different field to drive cosmic inflation. The properties of this field are totally different."

And now Verchiel was also confused, and lapsed into silence.

And God said, "Like I was saying, this field is a scalar field with imaginary mass, and it does spontaneously decay to a ground state with a non-zero value. But it's not the inflaton field. Instead it combines with the W1, W2, W3, and B bosons."

And Metatron began to flip back through the pages of the Heavenly Record trying to figure out where he'd lost the thread.

And Zephaniel said, "The what bosons?"

And God said, "The W1, W2, W3, and B bosons. I'm sure I mentioned them. You know, the massless bosons?"

And Zephaniel said, "I'm pretty sure we only talked about the W+, W-, and Z0 bosons. All of which you said were going to have mass, O Owner of All Sovereignty."

And God said, "Yes, but this is how they get them, you see. Once this field acquires a nonzero value everywhere, the massless bosons interact with it and get mass. Well, some of them do. They turn into the W+, W-, and Z0 boson. And the photon."

And Zephaniel said, "…and the photon, O Accepter of Invocation?"

And God said, "Well, I did say I was going to unify the electromagnetic force and the weak interaction, didn't I? This is how. Above the critical temperature--right now I'm thinking 10^15 K, but I'm open to feedback on that one--electromagnetism and the weak force act as a single unifying force. Below that temperature, the field gets a nonzero value, you get three massive bosons to mediate the weak interaction, and the photon pops out seperately."

And Zephaniel said, "That seems… a bit overly complicated, doesn't it, O Reinstater Who Brings Back All?"

And God said, "No, it's exactly what we need. Look, that way the W and Z bosons have something to do, but the weak interaction still only travels short distances. Gravity is still the star of the show on cosmic scales, as it were. But now quarks and leptons can swap their flavor!"

And Zephaniel said, rather weakly, "Their… flavor, O Source of Good?"

And God said, "It's this new quantum number I'm trying out, to give the three generations of matter more unique identities."

And Cambiel said, "Three generations of matter? Now I'm really confused."

And God said, "I'm sure I mentioned this. You've got the lightest quarks and leptons, and then two heavier versions of each that can decay into the lighter versions."

And Cambiel said, "What do they do? New kinds of chemistry, is it?"

And God said, "Well, no. Mostly they just decay in a couple microseconds. Or even faster."

And Zephaniel began to rub his temples, and Cambiel sniffed.

And Cambiel said, "This all seems a bit ad hoc to me. Not really the stuff of an elegant and obviously ordered Creation. Why not have four generations of matter? Why not a trillion?"

And God began to grow irritable, and said, "Well, that's not really up to you, now is it? We're going to have three generations of matter, and the electroweak force, and that's that!"

And Zephaniel said, "As long as we are unifying fundamental forces, perhaps we could somehow also unify the electroweak interaction with the strong interaction, or even gravity."

And God hesitated saying, "Well, I haven't decided about that yet. I'm not sure I want gravity to be quantized, you know? Seems to take some of the geometric elegance out of general relativity."

And now it was Zephaniel's turn to sigh, and he bowed his head. "As you wish, O Possessor of Authority of Decisions and Judgement."

being in yr 20s is abt experiencing the worst thing you can imagine & then having to go to the grocery store

i was very proud of that drawing please appreciate the bowl.

rules: answer 10 questions, then write 10 for the people you tag to answer!

@chazza-studies-alevels’s questions:

1. If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be and why?

oh, so many options. i think i would change how some ignorant people only see one correct way to live so that they are more open-minded.

2. What’s your favourite quality in yourself?

i’m a very determined person (eg right now i’m sitting at 1:30am waiting for clouds to pass so i can see a comet.)

3. What’s your favourite quality in other people?

loyalty and genuine kindness.

4. What’s something you wish you could do?

i wish i could play piano much better!

5. If you could live anywhere, where would you?

i would love to live in iceland

6. Who is your biggest inspiration and why?

in my personal life, both my grannies are my inspirations. but on a wider scale i look up to jessica meir and christina koch a lot, as well as alexandria ocasio-cortez and mae jemison.

7. Why did you choose your subjects/course?

physics, because i love space and understanding the world around me. maths, because it’s useful in physics and i love problem solving. chemistry, because i’m good at it and love understanding why things work. music performance, because i need a way to be creative and grow confidence!

8. What’s your favourite subject/pastime?

my favourite subject is physics (although currently we’re studying mechanics which i hate so maybe chemistry atm) and my favourite pastime is reading/cycling

9. If you could meet one person from history, who would it be and what would you say?

i’d love to meet mae jemison and tell her i think she is amazing and so so cool and a true hero of mine. OH or carrie fisher!! i’d tell her how much i loved princess leia as a little girl

10. What are you most grateful for in life?

i am so grateful to have grown up in a safe environment and have gone to a good school where i’ve had so many opportunities <3

my questions!

1. what did you want to be when you were a child?

2. describe your favourite teacher

3. if you could speak any language which would it be? why?

4. what colours do you associate with your classes?

5. what’s something that really annoys you?

6. what’s the best part of your classes?

7. what’s the worst part of your classes?

8. how many languages can you say ‘hello’ in?

9. do you write in pen or pencil?

10. what’s the worst book you’ve ever read?

i tag @stellar-kinematics @aztrolab @physics-studies @scrappaper

i be like *doesn’t understand brand new, advanced topic instantly* and my brain be like *you are a failure and a terrible student. why do you even do this class oh my god you’re so bad at it and everybody is better than you. time to give up* and that’s on imposter syndrome !

what kind of laptop do u have??? ive been looking into getting a new one and i noticed urs is lenovo👀👀

i have a lenovo yoga 300! i’ve had it for ~3 or 4 years and it still runs really well, plus it flips 360° round which is so so useful!

A recent cartoon for New Scientist

modern studies is my least favourite class, i hate it so so much. i genuinely can’t wait for the exam so i can drop it lmao, @ any scottish followers does anybody else have the misfortune of doing this class?? please dm me lets discuss our anguish

ever since i was a young hydrogen particle 14 billion years ago i knew i wanted to be wasting all the hot water in the shower