Diario de um pai desesperado

  Fun, yet terrifying, fact: a 2018 study found that   16% of Americans still believe the Earth is flat . Sixteen percent. That’s like one out of every six people you meet potentially thinking we're on a giant Frisbee instead of a round planet governed by gravitational forces.   Super comforting .   Today’s episode of   Humans Being Ridiculous   featured one of my classmates, Ben, trying to convince the entire physics class that the Earth is   flat . Flat. Like a poorly made pancake. And the worst part? Half the class actually   considered   it for a moment before Mr. Thompson shut it down with a stern, "No, Ben. Gravity doesn't work like that." I mean, I get it—people are free to think what they want. But come on. How hard is it to just   Google   basic physics?   That’s the real irony, isn't it? The internet was supposed to make us   more knowledgeable , not   more stupid . We’ve got the entirety of human knowledge ...

Did you know a caterpillar has about 4,000 muscles? I mean, that’s insane. I think about that fact every time I struggle to get off the couch. I have, what, 600 muscles? And I can't even convince half of them to cooperate when it's time for gym class. Meanwhile, a caterpillar, which is basically a squishy tube, manages to coordinate thousands of tiny muscle movements just to crawl around and eat leaves. Honestly, if I could borrow even a tenth of that motivation, maybe I wouldn’t dread gymnastics quite as much. It’s not that I hate moving altogether; I just hate the forced structure of it all. Gymnastics, with its routines and endless practice, feels like trying to force entropy into order. I’m no caterpillar—heck, I’m not even a semi-motivated squirrel. When the coach tells me to do a cartwheel, I feel like I’ve been asked to solve a complex physics equation in front of a crowd. Every muscle in my body protests, and all I can think is, "What’s the point?" Caterpillar...

 Experts say that people with high IQ have messy desks. A study found that a messy workspace can lead to more creative thinking and novel solutions. I guess my dad will not take this as an excuse for my chaotic desk, though. He's always been the kind of person who thinks a clear desk equals a clear mind. As a PhD physicist, he's used to precision and order, which makes my chaotic workspace a constant source of tension. Every time he passes by my room, I can almost hear him silently screaming inside. Sometimes, he screams outside too, launching into a full-on lecture about the importance of 'maintaining an efficient work environment'—as if I'm supposed to be solving for quantum field theory equations on my cluttered desk. "Zoe, how can you even find anything in here?" he often says, as if the entire universe isn't just one chaotic mess trying to make sense of itself. I mean, does he expect order in a universe ruled by entropy? I like to think my desk is...

Elementary particles are the building blocks of our universe, each with its own peculiar behavior.   Quarks, for example, come in six distinct "flavors" — up, down, strange, charm, top, and bottom. Their names sound more like an ice cream menu than the foundation of reality. Photons, speedy and massless, race through the vacuum like cosmic speedsters without a care. Then there are fermions, loyal to the Pauli Exclusion Principle, ensuring no two can ever occupy the same quantum state. Bosons, by contrast, are more sociable, piling up on each other like an overenthusiastic group hug. This reminds me of my dad explaining quantum physics at the dinner table — confusing analogies about ice cream flavors and family hugs that somehow made sense, but also made me question my sanity. My dad, by the way, would have thrived here — not because he likes parties, but because he can turn even the most tedious situation into a quirky physics metaphor. He’d stroll in, take one look at these ...