Wow, thank you for such an amazing response!

Checking out that TED talk is #1 on my list of things to do tomorrow morning. Thank you so much for that.

That’s an interesting point regarding the Einstein-Newton-quantum theory thing. I’m definitely not a physicist (I’m a biologist!), but I thought that the difference was that Newton’s theories of gravity still apply nearly perfectly to large objects (planets, baseballs, etc.) but that it doesn’t apply to small objects (electrons, protons, etc.). I also thought that Einstein’s theories of general relativity complement Newton’s theories for large objects, especially at large distances, but how it applies to small objects is still unclear. My understanding is that reconciling general relativity with quantum theory — which is the job of string theory — is the major challenge in physics and isn’t done yet! I could be wrong, though! I did take a year of physics in college in 2012 and we learned tons of Newtonian physics, so I think it’s still very relevant, at least with some stuff!

Thank you again for the thorough response. It’s so encouraging for a new blogger to hear that a reader spent so much time with my work and to get this sort of thoughtful feedback. It’s an honor!

Best,

-C