When I was a teenager, I was—shockingly, I know—deeply nerdy. At a science-fiction convention, I bought a button that read, “186,282 miles/second: Not just a good idea, it’s the law.” It was poking ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. When she was 10 years old, Rose Yu got a birthday present that would change her life—and, potentially, the way we study physics. Her ...