Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Ruining high school vacations since 2002...

Part of a summer email from a student (NL):

"... and yes I am enjoying my summer very much because I don't have to think about physics anymore HAHA can spend more time with friends and sleep and eat yummy food :D"

(you know that is a legit quote from a teenager because I thought ':D' was a typo at first...)

My response:

File this email under 'Ways my erstwhile physics teacher tries to ruin my summer":

When you "spend more time with friends and sleep and eat yummy food" are you not using an electric field to open an ion channel spanning the cell membrane of some of your neurons thus allowing some charge distribution across the same neural membrane to be altered thereby changing the voltage difference across the membrane?  Doesn't the changing voltage then trigger an action potential which causes another cascade of charges to be released and changes the electric fields near yet another neuron's dendrites which allows the sensation of happiness to arise in your brain?

So you may think you are enjoying your summer without thinking about physics but you most certainly are enjoying that sensation because of physics...


What a great job I have...

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