Tag: physics and math

What Dust From Space Tells Us About Ourselves

Every year, roughly 10 particles of space dust land on each square meter of Earth’s surface. “That means that they are everywhere. They are...

How to Use Your Speedometer to Figure Out Where Your Car Is

Let's imagine that you are in a car with no windows. I know that's crazy, but just hold on. Although there are no windows,...

How Universes Might Bubble Up and Collide

What lies beyond all we can see? The question may seem unanswerable. Nevertheless, some cosmologists have a response: Our universe is a swelling bubble....

Could Bobbie Really Hold 2 Spaceships Together in ‘The Expanse’?

Let’s just check this solution real quick.What about the units? On the left, tension is in units of Newtons. On the right side of...

The Secret Ingredient That Powers Supernovas

In 1987, a giant star exploded right next to our own Milky Way galaxy. It was the brightest and closest supernova since the invention...

What’s the Difference Between Electric Field, Voltage, and Current?

I hope that you are never in a situation in which you are in danger from a downed, but live, power line. However, if...

The Crooked, Complex Geometry of Round Trips

Have you ever wondered what life would be like if Earth weren’t shaped like a sphere? We take for granted the smooth ride through...

The Physics of Reddit’s Spinning Solar System Icon

This data looks nice and linear. That means that the inner and outer planets orbit at a constant rotational rate (which is expected). The...

Let’s Unpack the Pendulum Rocket Fallacy

The torque in this case depends on three variables: the magnitude of the force (F), the distance between the force and the point about...

The Search for Dark Matter Is Dramatically Expanding

Ever since astronomers reached a consensus in the 1980s that most of the mass in the universe is invisible—that “dark matter” must glue galaxies...

Physicists Are Closer to Knowing the Size of a Proton … Sort of

How big is a proton? That might sound like a pretty simple question, but it turned out to have the potential to wreck a...

Geometry Reveals How the World Is Made of Cubes

At first, “everything seemed to work,” Jerolmack said. Domokos’ mathematics had predicted that rock shards should average out to cubes. An increasing number of...

What’s a Semi-Log Plot and How Can You Use It for Covid Data?

Just to be clear, 106 means 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10. But what if I want to do...

Physicists Pin Down the Nuclear Reaction Just After the Big Bang

In a secluded laboratory buried under a mountain in Italy, physicists have re-created a nuclear reaction that happened between two and three minutes after...

The Physics of Materials at Minus 80 Degrees Celsius

OK, you have your rubber band (hopefully). Take it and stretch it with your hands, and keep it stretched. Now touch the stretched rubber...

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