Physical Science

There are two different scales of measuring temperature on Earth, but they merge at just one very cold number.

By Jesslyn Shields

It's seeped into movies and popular culture, but what does "six degrees of separation" really mean? Are we really that connected to each other?

By Dave Roos

Math is a language of symbols and equations and knowing the basic signposts is the first step in solving mathematical problems.

By Thomas Harlander

A new geometric shape called the "einstein" shape has been discovered and when you tile it, no repeating pattern emerges.

By Jesslyn Shields

Dividing fractions is easy once you learn a couple of rules and remember three words — keep, change and flip.

By Jesslyn Shields

Whether the circle is as big as planet Mars or as small as a tennis ball, the ratio of its circumference divided by its diameter will always equal pi (3.14). But why?

By Marshall Brain & Dave Roos

Mary, Queen of Scots was in the news again when amateur cryptologists found the key to decoding some letters that had remained a mystery for 500 years. How did they manage to break the code?

By Dave Roos

The Collatz conjecture can be worked on by 9-year-old math whizzes, but it's flummoxed some of the greatest minds of the past century. Will it ever be solved?

By Jesslyn Shields

We take the mystery out of reporting the percent error correctly and show you how to use it in real life.

By Mark Mancini

The iconic "school bus yellow" was the invention of an educator named Frank Cyr. But if yellow is so good for visibility, why don't all fire trucks use it too?

By Dave Roos

Want to know the area of your pizza or the kitchen you're eating it in? Come on, and we'll show you how to figure it out with an area formula.

By Thomas Harlander

The very idea of trying to subtract one fraction from another may send you into convulsions of fear, but don't worry — we'll show you how.

By Jesslyn Shields

It's called fusion ignition and it's being hailed as a historic development in nuclear fusion that could pave the way for clean energy. We talked to a nuclear physicist who explained it all.

By Carolyn Kuranz

You can find the distance between two points by using the distance formula. It's an application of the Pythagorean theorem. Remember that from high school algebra?

By Mark Mancini

The science is pretty simple. It's all about oxidation (the chemical reaction that makes rust). It's just sped up super fast.

By Kristen Hall-Geisler

When a peta and a tera won't do, you can now call on the quetta or the ronna prefixes. But just how big are these new metric systems of measurement?

By Alia Hoyt

A rise in carbon-14 in the early 1960s from nuclear bomb testing and radioactive contamination had some unexpectedly useful side effects. It's called the bomb pulse, but its benefits won't last forever.

By Patrick J. Kiger

How large does a random group of people have to be for a 50 percent chance to exist that at least two of the people will share a birthday?

By Laurie L. Dove

It looks completely impossible that this rock should stand, balanced as it is, but it has not moved since the last ice age.

By Jesslyn Shields

In 1999, Hisashi Ouchi, a Japanese nuclear fuel plant worker was exposed to critical levels of radiation. He suffered the worst radiation burns in history. He lived for 83 agonizing days afterward as his body all but disintegrated.

By Patrick J. Kiger

There are many types of energy in the world, from potential and kinetic to electrical and thermal, along with many others. But what exactly is energy?

By Mark Mancini

All bubbles pop — that's a fact of life. But what's the science behind the short life and inevitable pop of a bubble?

By Allison Troutner

Scientists created this expanding black hole illusion to show how your mind can trick your eye.

By Kathryn Whitbourne

With a little patience, you can master this trick of converting binary code to decimals — and have fun doing it!

By Mark Mancini

The answer to the question "Does time exist?" may seem obvious, but is it? And what if time doesn't exist, but is merely a human construct?

By Sam Baron