Originally Posted by caldirun:
“He is a particle physicist, no one understands it, if you think you do, you have missed the point.
Alice In Wonderland on acid may be the best description for this science.”
You have confused two things here, what he is and what he was teaching us about in that episode (I guess the initial laws of thermodynamics would pre-date even simple atomic theory). I never said I understand particle physics, I never made any reference to understanding anything, I made a specific reference to knowledge for that very reason, not understanding.
I picked up the daftest thing in that first episode, I did not know that our current period in the history of the universe is called the Stelliferous era. I had assumed a fairly simple transition from start to death, determined by timeline, and did not know it had been "cut up" in this way. Particle Physics? No, that's my level, and I never claim anything better.
My agreement on progs like Horizon is related to my lack of ability. I used to be VERY stretched by them in the 70s, I no longer find this to be the case. There is, obviously, still stuff way over my head, but it's only a few thousand feet nowadays (and I'm not getting any cleverer as I approach 60

).
Quick edit. If you couldn't grasp the concept of entropy when I was doing 'O' level physics, our physics teacher would but a glass of water in front of you and put a drop of ink in it. He said we could go home when the ink formed back into a drop in the water. It's funny how quickly we then understood the basic concept!