What if I told you that there was a secret window?

And if you looked through this window, you could see the entire history of the universe unfold before your very eyes.

You could watch as spiral galaxies slowly spin on their axes. You could watch as new stars

are born. You could see the emergence of the very first stars and galaxies to ever appear on the

cosmic scene. And through this secret window, if you're lucky enough and pay enough attention,

you might just see an alien. It sounds too good to be true, but this is science, and if we've learned anything in our

four centuries of scientific exploration of nature, is that science can produce miracles.

Or in this case, science can take advantage of nature's own miracles.

I'm talking about a curious little feature of the humble hydrogen atom.

One proton, one electron.

Done.

The simplest atom possible.

You can throw a neutron in there if you're feeling generous.

It's not necessary, but it does add a little bit of fiber.

Now, this proton and this electron are particles, which means that they have a list of

properties, properties like mass and electric charge. And these properties tell us how the particles

respond to, in this case, in the case of mass, to the gravitational force, and in the case of

electric charge, to the electric force. And then there's this other property. A property we call

spin. Now, when I say spin, everybody, including myself, thinks of the obvious, like, you know,

something spinning, like a Harlem Globetrotter spinning a basketball on their pinky finger. But these are particles, which

means they take up no volume in space, so how do they spin? The answer is they don't. Well, I mean,

they kind of do. Look, it's really weird and complicated, and it's one of

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