Physical Science
Physical science is the study of the physical world around you. Learn about everything from electricity to magnetism in this section.
You Know White Noise, But What's Pink Noise and Brown Noise?
Skipping Stones on Ice Makes Crazy Sci-fi Sounds
Mystery Behind Cuba's Alleged Sonic Attack Deepens
Why Do Bubbles Pop?
What's the World's Strongest Superacid?
Cadmium: The Highly Toxic Metal That Powers the World
Static Electricity Can Cause Way More Than a Bad Hair Day
Light Pollution Is Stealing the Night
Party Trick Breakdown: Why Do Balloons Stick to Hair?
How Are Coroners and Medical Examiners Different?
Viking Warrior in Ancient Grave Was a Woman
5 Things You Didn't Know About Autopsies
Time May Not Exist, Say Some Physicists and Philosophers
How Alchemy Paved the Way for Chemistry
Who Was the First Scientist?
A Kid-friendly Introduction to Magnets and Magnetism
How Solenoids Work
Why Does Ice Stick to Your Fingers?
How to Convert Binary Into Decimal (and Vice Versa)
How to Easily Convert Degrees to Radians (and Radians to Degrees)
What's an Easy Way to Convert Meters to Feet?
What Is Energy?
Could Newly Measured W Boson Break the Standard Model?
Super Cool Science: How to Make Instant Ice at Home
Hisashi Ouchi Suffered an 83-day Death By Radiation Poisoning
Could Thorium Power the Next Generation of Nuclear Reactors?
Radioactive! A Profile of the Element Plutonium
Is This Black Hole Coming for You? It's Just an Optical Illusion
Why Distant Mountains Appear Blue to the Naked Eye
Science Explains Why We Have Favorite Colors
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In 1999, a worker at a Japanese nuclear fuel plant was exposed to critical levels of radiation. He's still thought to have suffered the worst radiation burns in history. He lived for 83 agonizing days afterward as his body all but disintegrated.
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?
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Scientists created this expanding black hole illusion to show how your mind can trick your eye.
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
A decade of science and trillions of collisions show the W boson is more massive than expected. A physicist on the team explains what it means for the reigning model of particle physics.
By John Conway
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Superacids are those with an acidity greater than sulfuric acid. So which is the most super of superacids and what exactly is it used for?
Your eyes aren't playing tricks on you. Those mountains way off in the distance really do look blue, and it's because of how light wavelengths scatter in the atmosphere.
By Mark Mancini
Both degrees and radians represent the measure of an angle in geometry. So, how do you convert one to the other?
By Mark Mancini
Most of the world uses meters, apart from the U.S. and a few other countries. So what's an easy way to convert from meters to feet and vice versa?
By Mark Mancini
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Finding the range of a set of numbers is an easy subtraction problem!
We all have favorite colors. But have you ever considered why you like one color more than another?
There was a time (4,000 years ago) when simply being able to add might get your name on a clay tablet or help you accumulate vast wealth.
By Dave Roos
Converting kilogram measurements into pounds is not hard. We'll show you the textbook way plus two quick-and-dirty shortcuts.
By Mark Mancini
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Cadmium is a natural metal and the leading component in rechargeable batteries and solar cells. It is also highly toxic and heavily regulated.
Many people get speed and velocity confused. It's no surprise because the terms are often used interchangeably. But they're not quite the same thing. So how do you find the velocity of an object?
By Mark Mancini
The main function of the Krebs cycle is to produce energy, stored and transported as ATP or GTP, to keep the human body up and running.
Discovered in the early 1800s from a chunk of smuggled platinum ore, rhodium is the most valuable precious metal on the planet today, used mainly for keeping car emissions in check.
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We'll show you both a quick and dirty way, and a precise, more complicated formula for converting a Celsius temperature to Fahrenheit (and vice versa).
If you have trouble sleeping you might have been told to get a white noise machine. But white isn't the only color of noise out there.
By Talon Homer
Scientists have come up with a new formula to describe the shape of every egg in the world, which will have applications in fields from art and technology to architecture and agriculture.
Thorium is in many ways safer than uranium for nuclear power production. But is it safe enough to bet on for our energy future?
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Real numbers are the opposite of imaginary numbers and include every number you can think of.
This human-made element can power everything from nuclear weapons to deep space missions. So what's so scary about plutonium?
By Mark Mancini