As someone who studied physics in high school, this reading is a super enlightening and fun refresher. As Ross mentioned, rather than having a list of facts like most non-fiction textbooks seem to be, Amdahl writes in a more colloquial and easy-to-understand manner that incorporates a lot of simple examples that make understanding the electron theory a lot easier.
This reading reminded me a lot of what my physics teacher used to teach us. He also described current to be “traffic” and voltage similar to “need to party” but rather as the “need to get down the slide” – with the “slide” referring to the circuit. When the need gets bigger, the first “person” is able to be pushed down the slide and the chain reaction continues. The traffic would, therefore, be how many “people” are going down that slide
I think perhaps the most interesting part of this reading was the fact that he seems to dispute the electron theory – “you must smile and agree with them. Don’t confront them, not yet”. The introduction of Greenies, to me, symbolised the idea that “contradictions [don’t stop] any other scientific theor[ies]”, in other words, meaning that there are always new ideas and theories that can introduce the concepts of electricity and magnetism.
Overall, I really enjoyed Amdahl use of humour and analogies to teach a physics concept to a wider audience.