What is the universe made of?
AdultsHistoryPhysicsSpaceThe atoms around you have existed for billions of years -- and most originated in the flaming, gaseous core of a star. Dennis Wildfogel tells the captivating tale of these atoms' long journeys from the Big Bang to the molecules they form today.
The Truth About Toilet Swirl
AdultsPhysicsWorldWe each repeated the experiment 3 times, and got the same results every time. For those of you who might be skeptical, great! A right circular prismatic kiddie pool is only $10 and you can do the experiment for yourself at your latitude. There's really no reason you shouldn't do it for yourself.
How batteries work
AdultsHistoryPhysicsTechnology...Batteries are a triumph of science-they allow smartphones and other technologies to exist without anchoring us to an infernal tangle of power cables. Yet even the best batteries will diminish daily, slowly losing capacity until they finally die. Why does this happen, and how do our batteries even store so much charge in the first place? Adam Jacobson gives the basics on batteries.
Just how small is an atom?
AdultsPhysicsScienceEducationJust how small are atoms? And what's inside them? The answers turn out to be astounding, even for those who think they know. This fast-paced animation uses spectacular metaphors (imagine a blueberry the size of a football stadium!) to give a visceral sense of the building blocks that make our world.
The beginning of the universe, for beginners
AdultsHistorySpacePhysics...How did the universe begin -- and how is it expanding? CERN physicist Tom Whyntie shows how cosmologists and particle physicists explore these questions by replicating the heat, energy, and activity of the first few seconds of our universe, from right after the Big Bang.
Beaker Ball Balance Problem
AdultsInternet CulturePhysicsMath...This problem has made the rounds on the internet but I felt it deserved a treatment like this.
What Color is the Universe?
AdultsPhysicsSpaceAstronomy...When you stare up at the night sky, you might think that the universe is really black, but that's just because our eyes aren't sensitive enough to see the billions and billions of multicolored stars out there. Ever wonder why certain stars are certain colors? And what color is our sun, really? If we looked at enough stars, could we figure out the average color of the universe?
Dark matter: The matter we can't see
AdultsPhysicsSpaceScience...The Greeks had a simple and elegant formula for the universe: just earth, fire, wind, and water. Turns out there's more to it than that -- a lot more. Visible matter (and that goes beyond the four Greek elements) comprises only 4% of the universe. CERN scientist James Gillies tells us what accounts for the remaining 96% (dark matter and dark energy) and how we might go about detecting it.
If superpowers were real: Super speed
AdultsHumanPhysicsScience...What if super speed wasn't just the stuff of epic comic book stories? Is it scientifically possible to be super speedy? In this series, Joy Lin tackles six superpowers and reveals just how scientifically realistic they can be to us mere mortals.
Exploring other dimensions - Alex Rosenthal and George Zaidan
AdultsPhysicsScienceBooks...Imagine a two-dimensional world -- you, your friends, everything is 2D. In his 1884 novella, Edwin Abbott invented this world and called it Flatland. Alex Rosenthal and George Zaidan take the premise of Flatland one dimension further, imploring us to consider how we would see dimensions different from our own and why the exploration just may be worth it.
Project Loon - Google's Internet Balloons - Future Thinking - Head Squeeze
AdultsInternet CulturePhysicsTechnology...We are becoming increasingly more dependent on the internet to help run our lives. But much of the planet is outside the web, zones that are without web coverage. Ordinarily, this is more of a nuisance than a calamity. But in the aftermath of disasters, restoring internet coverage can be the difference between life and death.