Energy
Imagine you’re making popcorn. Each kernel is like a molecule. The microwave or the stovetop or the burning trashcan you use to pop the corn is adding energy to the molecules, which makes them dance and play and bounce off of each other. And now you understand how molecules interact!
Now imagine that the popcorn from earlier is orbiting a black hole and approaching the speed of light. As the popcorn begins losing the qualities of matter, it begins to move both into and out of existence, producing artificial butter flavoring, which here represents x-ray particles. Now pretend you’ve eaten the popcorn. Mmmm, that’s wormhole physics!
Curved Space
Stand in front of your mommy’s waterbed. Notice how her body sinks into the bed and the half-empty bottles near her head roll down to her tummy. Well, if your mother is a celestial body, her bed is space, and the bottles are celestial bodies of lesser mass, then tonight the earth will be too full of moon rocks to microwave you dinner.
String Theory
Sure, string theory sounds confusing and hard to understand, but with a little creative analogy-making it can be just as much fun as eating ice cream with your grandmother:
Now imagine your grandmother is a one-dimensional string. Depending on how she spins and vibrates, she produces wonderful ice cream flavors like Rocky Road (quarks) and Mint Chocolate Chip (antibosons)!
Schrodinger’s Pokemon
Assume your Eevee is sealed within a random Pokeball. 33.3% of the Pokeballs in Ash’s collection contain a Fire Stone, 33.3% contain a Thunder Stone, and the rest contain a Water Stone. Until you release your Eevee in battle it is impossible to know whether or not it has evolved into a Flareon, Jolteon, or Vaporeon. Therefore, you simultaneously have all three evolved forms in your Pokeball, and your Pokedex will update accordingly.
Elements of Quantum Theory
Entanglement
Imagine Bob and Alice. If Bob is angry, then Alice has a black eye, despite the fact that he is spending the weekend in Atlantic City with three strippers. Although Alice is still at home in Schenectady, Bob’s situation affected hers. Therefore, they are entangled.
Quantization
On Tuesday nights, Daddy drinks between 1 and 6 bottles of beer. He can’t drink 2.5 or 5.6 bottles because he’s an alcoholic. This is called quantization.
Wave-particle Duality
Don’t you love to get Cranapple juice boxes in your lunch? Those are great because they’re both Cranberry and Apple at the same time. Much like light exists as both particles and massless waveforms.
