Skip to content
Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · Reno, NV

Why I love physics

The Cold Atom Laboratory, two white equipment containers packed with lasers and vacuum hardware, on a bench before flight. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Physics" page — read by families in Reno, NV.
The Cold Atom Laboratory, two white equipment containers packed with lasers and vacuum hardware, on a bench before flight. NASA/JPL-Caltech · Public domain
  • The same rules work everywhere. Even out in space.
  • If I know how it starts, I can say how it ends.
  • Nothing here is an accident.

You can love physics in Reno.

What it really is

Physics is the small set of rules everything else has to obey.

Three things to try today

  1. Drop two different things at the same time.
  2. Guess which lands first. Then check.
  3. Try it with a flat paper and a crumpled one.
Astronaut Christina Koch floats in the space station while unloading new hardware for the Cold Atom Lab experiment. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Physics" page — read by families in Reno, NV.
Astronaut Christina Koch floats in the space station while unloading new hardware for the Cold Atom Lab experiment. NASA/JPL-Caltech · Public domain

For the grown-up reading this

The Reno, NV metro area has about 578,734 residents, ranking 101st in the country. Somewhere in that number is a kid who lights up about physics and has never met another one.

The paper demonstration separates gravity from air resistance in ten seconds.

If the kid who loves this is a girl

Read what one popular teacher said to one little girl who took out the classroom trash without being asked — and what that girl did with the rest of her life.

Girls are great at math — Reno, NV →

Love something else too

Five labeled water-quality sample bottles lined up in a bag, ready to be carried to the laboratory for analysis. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Chemistry" page — read by families in Reno, NV.Why I love chemistryA Keyence optical microscope set up on a laboratory bench with its monitor and sample stage. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Microscopes" page — read by families in Reno, NV.Why I love microscopesAn optical bench in the Laser Optics Laboratory at Ames Research Center, crowded with mirrors, lenses and beam paths. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Lasers" page — read by families in Reno, NV.Why I love lasersThe last of four gold solar array wings is lowered into place on the Orion spacecraft's European Service Module. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Solar Power" page — read by families in Reno, NV.Why I love the sunTwo large gantry 3D printers extrude curved concrete walls of subscale habitat structures side by side at NASA's 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love 3D Printing" page — read by families in Reno, NV.Why I love 3D printersPale rock outcroppings breaking through prairie grass in Big Cypress National Preserve. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Geology" page — read by families in Reno, NV.Why I love the earthCylindrical rock cores laid out in trays at the USGS Core Research Center, showing bands of different rock layers. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Rocks" page — read by families in Reno, NV.Why I love rocksThree orange lava fountains jet more than 100 feet above the fissure 8 cone during the 2018 Kilauea eruption. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Volcanoes" page — read by families in Reno, NV.Why I love volcanoes

Near Reno

Why I love physics, everywhere in the US · All things to love · STEM jobs you could do · Summer camps in Reno