When I was about 8 my father brought home a documentary about black holes. He had me sit and watch part of the documentary with him. I didn’t quite grasp the concepts being described and discussed. But what I do remember was that gravity, that pesky stuff which made me fall off my bike, seemed to be effected by how large of a divot an object would leave in the “fabric of space-time”. I didn’t really understand fully what that meant but I thought the example they used to model how objects cause gravitational forces was pretty cool. The scientist had a bed sheet elevated of the ground and pulled in different directions all at once by its 4 corners. They then dropped a bowling ball in the center, it stretched the sheet and caused a sizable divot. Some scientist then proceeded to place tennis balls at the edge of the sheet and, almost as if by magic, they rolled towards the bowling ball. Now, I was old enough to know that objects could and would roll down hills, that was not news to me. But the fact these scientist had just explained to me in a way I could somewhat understand what gravity was blew my mind.

Shortly there after they proceeded to talk about something being so heavy and dense that it could literally trap light and never let it go. They referred to it as black hole, and it kind of terrified me. Clearly it made an impression, I still remember the whole experience quite vividly. It was my first experience with real scientific ideas. Over time I became more interested in scientific information, especially anything to do with space. What really solidified my thirst for knowledge was a documentary called The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. That documentary was life changing, never viewed the world in the same way again.

That’s kind of what I want to do here. I’m not a physicist, not really an expert in anything. I’m just a science enthusiast hoping to give someone else that mind blown moment.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.— Albert Einstein