Twin paradox by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
The key question is: why is this not symmetrical?
One answer is: because one of the twin accelerates, and therefore changes inertial frames.
But the better answer is: understand what happens when the stationary twin sends light signals at constant time intervals to each other. When does the travelling twin receives them?
By doing that, we see that "all the extra aging happens immediately when the twin turns around":
  • on the out trip, both twins receive signals at constant intervals
  • when the moving twin turns around and starts to accelerate through different inertial frames, shit happens:
    • the moving twin suddenly notices that the rate of signals from the stationary twin increased. They are getting older faster than us!
    • the stationary twin suddenly notices that the rate of signals from the moving twin decreased. They are getting older slower than us!
  • then when the moving twin reaches the return velocity, both see constant signal rates once again
Figure 1.
Twin paradox illustration with twins sending light signals at regular intervals
. Source.
Another way of understanding it is: you have to make all calculations on a single inertial frame for the entire trip.
Supposing the sibling quickly accelerates out (or magically starts moving at constant speed), travels at constant speed, and quickly accelerates back, and travels at constant speed setup, there are three frames that seem reasonable:
  • the frame of the non-accelerating sibling
  • the outgoing trip of the accelerating sibling
  • the return trip of the accelerating sibling
If you do that, all three calculations give the exact same result, which is reassuring.
Another way to understand it is to do explicit integrations of the acceleration: physics.stackexchange.com/questions/242043/what-is-the-proper-way-to-explain-the-twin-paradox/242044#242044 This is the least insightful however :-)
Bibliography:
Theory that gases are made up of a bunch of small billiard balls that don't interact with each other.
This theory attempts to deduce/explain properties of matter such as the equation of state in terms of classical mechanics.
Enthalpy by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Adds up chemical energy and kinetic energy.
Wikipedia mentions however that the kinetic energy is often negligible, even for gases.
The sum is of interest when thinking about reactions because chemical reactions can change the number of molecules involved, and therefore the pressure.
To predict if a reaction is spontaneous or not, negative enthalpy is not enough, we must also consider entropy via Gibbs free energy.
Baryon by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
The most important examples by far are the proton and the neutron.
Reversible reaction by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
I think these are the ones where , i.e. enthalpy and entropy push the reaction in different directions. And so we can use temperature to move the Chemical equilibrium back and forward.
Video 1.
Demonstration of a Reversible Reaction by Rugby School Chemistry (2020)
Source. Hydrated copper(ii) sulfate.

Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project

Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
We have two killer features:
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    Figure 1.
    Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page
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    Figure 2.
    You can publish local OurBigBook lightweight markup files to either https://OurBigBook.com or as a static website
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    Figure 3.
    Visual Studio Code extension installation
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    Figure 4.
    Visual Studio Code extension tree navigation
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    Figure 5.
    Web editor
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    Video 3.
    Edit locally and publish demo
    . Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.
    Video 4.
    OurBigBook Visual Studio Code extension editing and navigation demo
    . Source.
  3. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook-media/master/feature/x/hilbert-space-arrow.png
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