Quasicrystals are non-periodic hexagonal crystals that follow the same rules as mathematical penrose tiles. Here's a paper on some interesting theoretical phase transitions that are similar to the type of electron control you mention. https://journals.aps.org/prresearch/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev...
For a steampunk throwback of this idea, there are a number of self-playing full orchestras at the House on the Rock (an amazing museum of all things kitsch Wisconsin) that use 100% mechanically driven pneumatically controlled instruments. It's amazing and this video doesn't do it justice, but here's a pretty good idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpaRGpoMyjg
This headline, the article, and most of the comments here seem to be going out of their way to present this as a way bigger change than it is. As is clear even from the preview, this is a change to the curriculum of ONE CREATIVE WRITING where second-year students now won't be required to write sonnets as part of the curriculum for that ONE CLASS. It's not about courses where students learn about poetry forms, or all the classes in the department, or even about what the students learn in the overall curriculum. The full article makes it clear that first year students will still learn about and be required to write sonnets.
Even if you feel like Hacker News bandwidth is well spent on topics like creative writing curriculum design (and I clicked the link so I'm not saying it's not), I'd hope the specificity of that interest in the topic would yield a comment section with some thoughtful analysis from folks who read the link and spent some time thinking about the topic at hand.
I'm glad that was helpful. I'm in a similar boat of just being interested in this for fun. I have a little more of the math and physics background for it, but it's pretty rusty and I don't need it to understand even most of the interesting papers.
You probably want to understand three areas in more detail than you'll get from the wikipedia links I sent:
1) cosmology (people gave several good recommendations already)
2) wrap your head around the weirdness of quantum physics. I really enjoyed Six Impossible Things by John Gribbin as a good intro to different equivalent ways of conceptualizing quantum physics. It's not heavy on math and you can do it as an audiobook without missing anything.
3) Standard Model of forces/particles. It's really helpful to do this as a part of a book or long article instead of just wikipedia. Some of the recommendations in #1 will cover this. I don't have any recent recommendations to give there, but I'm sure there's lots out there.
It's hard to know what your current knowledge level is without more information, but it sounds like you're trying to develop a good background more just to dive into areas that seem fun to explore as a hobby, rather than focused study-- so I'm suggesting things that lead to more exploration.
A few of the resources below are good backgrounds, and Wikipedia is great for filling in your knowledge. Then to find interesting things to spark your hobby interest, I'd recommend following astronomers and astrophysicists on twitter, which will also help point you to interesting papers (which may take a lot of referencing Wikipedia to understand).
You'll need at least a little quantum physics to have some things make sense, so it's worth getting that from some of the links people mentioned below if you don't already.
Some twitter folks for key topics (and you can find interesting papers and other twitter folks from there):
@badastronomer (great for pointers/explanations for lots of topics)
@astrokatie (cosmology)
@nasaSun (the Sun)
@jannaLevin (black holes, gravity astronomy)
@matt_of_earth (host of PBS Spacetime, which someone else mentioned)
@ajpizzuto (neutrino astronomy)
Yeah, sleep time is key for getting things done with kids and toddlers. If your toddler isn't napping much or your kids are staying up late, a sleep consultant can help you reset their schedules (most will handle all the advising over the phone). This is one of those things that most parents think is a joke, or that their kids just won't go on a schedule, or that they can figure it out themselves until they actually deal with a professional. It makes a huge difference. If your kids sleeping on a schedule is the difference between being effective at your job or not, it's definitely worth trying.
For the first-grader (and some toddlers), you could try kids audio books. Most kids love them and it can keep them entertained for a long time and more mentally engaged than TV. Sometimes my kids just sit and listen, and other times they do other activities while they listen. Even if they get bored of the audio book, I've noticed they are much more likely to stay focused for long periods doing other activities like drawing or playing with toys if there's an audio book in the background. You can find all the children's classics in audio books. If you have an audible subscription, you can sometimes find whole children's book series for a single credit (like 19 hours of the Ramona Quimby collection). You can also check them out of many municipal libraries online. Children's podcasts are also good, and there are educational options there too.
You could also give them some screen time, but try to keep it more engaging. For instance, video calls with their friends(clearly won't work long with the toddler though) or physical activities led by an instructor on the screen like kids yoga (Cosmic Kids Yoga is good) or dance.
Also, anyone who's used to teaching dance, martial arts, physical training, music, foreign language tutoring, etc is really struggling now with the quarantines. Many of them are trying to continue classes and one-on-one instruction over video (or would be willing to), and they could definitely use the extra money right now if your kids have been doing one of those activities or have something they're interested in and willing to follow on the screen.