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What is the universe made of?

Adults Physics
The 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

Adults Physics
We 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.

What's The Loudest Possible Sound?

Adults Physics
It's definitely higher than "11"

The Essentials of Energy

Adults Physics
The world of energy is a confusing place. What's better, nuclear or solar? What's the difference between fluorescent bulbs and LEDs? What's the difference between energy and power? And what the heck is a kilowatt-hour?!

How batteries work

Adults Physics
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.

Explained: Beaker Ball Balance Problem

Adults Physics
This is the solution to: http://youtu.be/QD3hbVG1yxM

Just how small is an atom?

Adults Physics
Just 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.

How to SEE or HEAR the Big Bang

Adults Physics
So you know a bit about the Big Bang - but did you know that you can physically see or hear it in your every day life? Find out how 'static' often contains remnants from this monumental event.

The beginning of the universe, for beginners

Adults Physics
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

Adults Physics
This problem has made the rounds on the internet but I felt it deserved a treatment like this.

What Color is the Universe?

Adults Physics
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?

How fast & how far do bullets go?

Adults Physics
James May imparts his wisdom on all things bullets.

Dark matter: The matter we can't see

Adults Physics
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

Adults Physics
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.

How Big is the Solar System?

Adults Physics
The true scale of our cosmic neighborhood. Whoa.

Exploring other dimensions - Alex Rosenthal and George Zaidan

Adults Physics
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

Adults Physics
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.

The fundamentals of space-time: Part 2 - Andrew Pontzen and Tom Whyntie

Adults Physics
Light always travels at a speed of 299,792,458 meters per second. But if you're in motion too, you're going to perceive it as traveling even faster -- which isn't possible! In this second installment of a three-part series on space-time, CERN scientists Andrew Pontzen and Tom Whyntie use a space-time diagram to analyze the sometimes confounding motion of light.

Why is glass transparent?

Adults Physics
If you look through your glasses, binoculars or a window, you see the world on the other side. How is it that something so solid can be so invisible? Mark Miodownik melts the scientific secret behind amorphous solids.

There's No Such Thing As Cold

Adults Physics
You've felt cold before. Sometimes it's cold outside. But what if I told you that "cold" isn't real? There's no substance or quantity called "cold" in science. We can't measure the amount of "cold" in something. Instead it's about what's NOT there. In this week's video, learn the difference between heat and temperature, why a wind makes us feel colder, and what it's like to live as a mass of jiggling atoms. This is the physics of cold.

Quantum Entanglement & Spooky Action at a Distance

Adults Physics
Does quantum entanglement make faster-than-light communication possible?