One of my bywords is, “If I can’t make an illustration of a technical concept, then I don’t understand it.” While writing and illustrating this blog I’ve perforce had to come up with a large collection of illustrations. Many of those fit naturally into slide shows. Here’s a selection of ones I’ve presented recently. They’d be better with audio or at least notes, but there’s only so much time…

Just open the file and proceed click by click. For best results the files should be opened with PowerPoint. Some of the animations may act a little odd in other “compatible” software. Sorry ’bout that.

~ Rich Olcott

• 2026
  • Time, And Time Again
  • How do we know grandfathers are safe from time travelers, probably? How can someone else’s clock run slower than yours when your clock is running slower than theirs? Are you good with the movie “Interstellar” somehow time‑squeezing 23 years into 7 hours? Why did Einstein conclude that simultaneity is an illusion? What’s special about Heisenberg’s time uncertainty? And what is a time crystal anyway?
    Many people have talked about Time. Physicists have done something about it — they’ve studied it, intensively. This presentation explores some of their weirder findings.
    As a lagniappe, there’s video of a tesseract rotating about two perpendicular axes.
    Trigger warnings — The words relativity and quantum appear. There is mild algebra but no calculus.
  • Click here to download slide show
• 2025
  • Space, Time and Multiverses
  • Wait — “multiverses,” plural? A universe is already everything. A multiverse must be a group of everythings, which is just silly. So what’s with plural multiverses?
    Different kinds of multiverse. Cosmologists have dreamed up whole categories of multiverse, including some that are beyond portrayal by sci‑fi authors, comic book artists and even MCU scriptwriters. For an initial mind‑stretch, this show lays out confirmed or proposed extremes within our own universe. Then it plays with a dozen of the most interesting varieties of Physics‑based multiverse.
    Trigger warnings — The words relativity and quantum appear. There is mild algebra but no calculus.
  • Click here to download slide show
• 2024
  • Most of What You Think You Know About Black Holes Is Bogus
    (or) Black Holes Don’t Suck
  • Black holes, so enticingly mysterious, have been part of popular culture since before Disney featured one in a terrible 1979 movie. Nearly everyone knows something about them, but there’s a problem — the core concept has wrapped itself in a plethora of myths and misconceptions. In a survey of visitors to my local science museum I recorded numerous beliefs that just aren’t so. 
    To some people’s surprise, neither Albert Einstein nor Stephen Hawking invented the black hole. Black holes don’t magically suck in everything around them. A black hole’s beyond‑lightspeed escape velocity has nothing to do with trapping photons inside it. Black holes, dark matter and dark energy are separate notions linked only by their Gothic names.
    This show is intended to debunk (as necessary), demystify and clarify what black holes are and how they affect the near and far Universe.
    Trigger warning — There is mild algebra but no calculus.
  • Click here to download slide show