“A fundamental limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle, known as complementary variables, such as position x and momentum p, can be known.” Source: Gabriel Weinberg's Mental Models I Find Repeatedly Useful
“the time required for a quantity to reduce to half its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo, or how long stable atoms survive, radioactive decay.” (related: viral marketing) Source: Gabriel Weinberg's
“The smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction.” “In social dynamics, critical mass is a sufficient number of adopters of an innovation in a social system so that the rate of adoption becomes self-sustaining and creates further
When we combine various elements, we create new substances. This is no great surprise, but what can be surprising in the alloying process is that 2+2 can equal not 4 but 6 – the alloy can be far stronger than the simple
"An object in motion with a certain vector wants to continue moving in that direction unless acted upon. This is a fundamental physical principle of motion; however, individuals, systems, and organizations display the same effect. It allows them to minimize the use
"Most of the engineering marvels of the world have been accomplished with applied leverage. As famously stated by Archimedes, “Give me a lever long enough and I shall move the world.” With a small amount of input force, we can make a
A catalyst either kick-starts or maintains a chemical reaction, but isn’t itself a reactant. The reaction may slow or stop without the addition of catalysts. Social systems, of course, take on many similar traits, and we can view catalysts in a similar
"A fire is not much more than a combination of carbon and oxygen, but the forests and coal mines of the world are not combusting at will because such a chemical reaction requires the input of a critical level of “activation energy”
"Velocity is not equivalent to speed; the two are sometimes confused. Velocity is speed plus vector: how fast something gets somewhere. An object that moves two steps forward and then two steps back has moved at a certain speed but shows no
"Relativity has been used in several contexts in the world of physics, but the important aspect to study is the idea that an observer cannot truly understand a system of which he himself is a part. For example, a man inside an