Sciencespeaking topic
Cut a magnet in two and you get two magnets; you never find a single pole. No matter how many times you cut it, north and south always stay together. Why does nature not allow a lone pole?
— magnetic dipole / magnetic monopole
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- Why does time dilation, the idea in Einstein's special relativity that time passes differently for different observers, feel so deeply at odds with our everyday intuition?
- One reason we age is that our cells can only divide a limited number of times: with each division the 'protective cap' at the ends of the chromosomes shortens a little, and when it runs out the cell retires. So there's a counter ticking inside us. Is that counter a fate, or a brake that protects us from cancer?
- DeltaFosB: repeated addictive behavior accumulates this protein in the brain, leaving a lasting molecular trace. If a habit changes genetic switches in our brain, is there really such a thing as just once?
- The glymphatic system: Nedergaard discovered that while we sleep the brain flushes out the day's toxic waste like a sewer. If sleep is not a luxury but the brain's mandatory cleaning shift, does sleeplessness pollute the brain?
- The fear of eggs and cholesterol has collapsed: in most people dietary cholesterol has limited effect on blood cholesterol, because the liver cuts its own production. Why were we afraid for the wrong reasons for decades?