Another lazy day on the Puddleduck: This seems... smaller than I remember.Courtesy OlplAhoy, Buzznauts! As small and oddly colored as she may be, the Puddleduck is a fast ship, and her tubby belly can hold buckets of that rich, greasy knowledge we prize so highly.

To be clear, when I say “buckets,” I don’t mean that literally. Puddleduck can hold lots and lots of buckets, but usually we have more practical containers. “Buckets” just means “lots” here. Also, when I refer to the Puddleduck as a “she,” I only do so for the sake of nautical tradition. Thankfully, most ships boast neither male nor female genitalia. Neither do ducks, for that matter, as far as I can tell. (I’ve had plenty of ducks fly over me, and darned if I can see anything distinguishing there.)

The Puddleduck has sailed into some heady waters recently—intellectually dangerous territory, certainly, but with the greater risk comes the chance of greater rewards. And so… more random sciencey questions. (I have a stack of these raw, unadulterated questions in my cabin at all times. It’s one of the many benefits of a lieutenancy aboard a science vessel.)

Question: Is there anything smaller than an electron?

Answer: Oh my, yes. Or… sort of. There are particles so small that thinking about them will cause every blood vessel in your brain to immediately burst. This is why particle physicists have to be so extensively trained—they’re like brain-ninjas. Where a real ninja can prevent his or her own body from exploding after being forced to swallow an explosive device, so too can a particle physicist protect their brain from the tremendous pressures of the hard sciences.

See, it seems like electrons are “point particles.” That means that they don’t really have any size at all—they don’t take up any space. (Although the electric charge of an electron could be used to define a radius.) Despite having no size, electrons do have mass, and there are particles that weigh even less than electrons. Neutrinos, for instance, have only a fraction of the mass of an electron. I can’t get into what a neutrino is because I can already feel the pressure in my head building, but if you want to learn more about the most fundamental particles of existence, check out Jeremiah Mans’ Scientist on the Spot feature.

Question: Is the universe still expanding?

Answer: This is another one of those brain-poppers, but, yes, the universe is still expanding. But it’s not expanding into anything—it’s not like a balloon filling up a room, it’s like the room itself getting bigger in every direction from every point in the room.

With sensitive enough equipment, scientists can actually see the “edge” of the universe. Again, it’s not like they can look to a point in space, beyond which is a big, blank are. In a way it’s more like they’re looking at the beginning of the universe. The universe, in the first moments of its existence, expanded from the tiniest of tiny points. Some of the energy from this initial expansion/explosion is still around, and it’s further and fainter than anything else you might try to observe, so looking at it (with special equipment) is kind of like looking at the edge of the universe, as well as a snapshot of the beginning of the universe. (For more, check out Shaul Hanany’s SOTS.)

Oh, that’s too much. Let’s try something a little softer.

Question: What’s the grossest thing you have ever seen?

Answer: In third grade Mikey Helke threw up during lunch, and I just about lost it. Looking back, I think that it was mostly chocolate milk, but it seemed pretty gross at the time.

Bot fly larva emerging from human skin is pretty gross too, according to the internet videos I’ve seen.

Oh, also, a couple years ago, I took a big, daring bite out of a piece of old cake. As I closed my mouth to chew, a puff of smoke blew out from between my lips. I opened and closed my mouth again, and it happened again. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the situation until I spat the cake out, and realized that the bottom of it was covered in thick mold, and I was expelling a cloud of spores each time I closed my mouth. I thought the whole thing was pretty interesting, but most of the people I’ve told about that reacted poorly.

Question: What is the circumference of Earth?

Answer: I like this one. It’s nautically applicable, and it’s so easy to answer while sitting at a computer (I have a computer on the Puddleduck, obviously). Depending on the direction you measure, the circumference is slightly difference. If you were to walk around the world starting at the North Pole, and going through the south pole, you’d have to go 40,008 km, or 24860 miles (and this is assuming you could walk on water without much trouble). If you walked around the world at the equator, however, you would have to travel 40,075 km, or 24,901 miles. The difference comes from the fact that Earth isn’t a true sphere—it’s just a little bit squashed on its axis.

And that’s all for now, Buzznauts. There’s a situation on the poop deck that requires my immediate attention.

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