Physical Science

Physical science is the study of the physical world around you. Learn about everything from electricity to magnetism in this section.

Learn More / Page 10

We may think the butterfly effect means that a small change (like the flap of a butterfly's wings) can have huge consequences (a tornado in China). But what if it means the opposite?

By Nathan Chandler

It isn't magic but instead science that causes the bottled water to completely freeze - and some pretty simple science at that. So, how long does it take water to freeze?

By Kristen Hall-Geisler & Austin Henderson

Venn diagrams are an easy way to simplify information and visualize relationships between concepts or sets of data.

By Jesslyn Shields & Sascha Bos

Advertisement

Don't know your fool's gold from the real deal? We'll tell you how to tell what's pyrite (aka fool's gold) and the good ol' 24 karat stuff you want.

By Mark Mancini

Tungsten's hardness and heat resistance make it a must for products like rocket engine nozzles, armor-piercing bullets and even the humble light bulb filament. In fact, pure tungsten boils at 10,030 F, the same as the photosphere of the sun.

By Dave Roos

It's easy to make a Mobius strip with some paper and tape, but your mind will be blown by the mathematical concepts it unlocks.

By Trevor English

Two lines that are perpendicular to the same line are parallel to each other and will never intersect.

By Mark Mancini

Advertisement

The seriously ambitious experiment aims to understand the mysterious neutrino and maybe even figure out why matter won out over antimatter during the Big Bang.

By Ian O'Neill, Ph.D.

A reinterpretation of an ancient Babylonian tablet shows that trigonometry might be 1,000 years older than thought. But there's some disagreement.

By Jesslyn Shields

If you're one of those people who chooses invisibility as your desired superpower, it could mean you have a dark side.

By Alia Hoyt

Scientists have figured out why some objects stick more to each other. And it's a very cool trick.

By Alia Hoyt

Advertisement

Why do we love looking at a perfectly stacked display of soup cans or six flower petals around a stamen? Our brains seem wired for it -- but why?

By Dave Roos

Coroners and medical examiners both help investigate unusual or violent deaths. The two jobs are different, but deeply connected.

By John Donovan

You don't need to be a fan of chemistry to appreciate isotopes. They affect geology and medicine, too.

By Mark Mancini

Alchemy may seem like a cousin to witchcraft but in reality it was the forerunner of modern chemistry.

By Nathan Chandler

Advertisement

Primary colors are the blocks from which all other colors are built. But there's a lot more to know about them than the basic red, yellow and blue we learned about in kindergarten.

By Michelle Konstantinovsky & Desiree Bowie

Long-banned in the U.S., except for religious purposes, peyote is starting to be decriminalized in some cities. But is that a good thing for this endangered plant?

By Nathan Chandler

Making chemical compounds is a lot like dating. Some ions are naturally compatible; others hook up out of desperation.

By Jesslyn Shields

Award-winning poet and fiction writer Mary Soon Lee has found a charming way to combine science and poetry in a refreshing new take on the periodic table of elements.

By Carrie Tatro

Advertisement

A unit circle is an important part of trigonometry and can define right angle relationships known as sine, cosine and tangent.

By Nokware Knight & Austin Henderson

A multiplication table is an easy-to-use grid of numbers that can help you learn to multiply quickly by using the chart and, eventually, your memory.

By Kristen Hall-Geisler & Austin Henderson

Sir Isaac Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation helps put the laws of gravity into a mathematical formula. And the gravitational constant is the "G" in that formula.

By Mark Mancini

Magnetism is at work all around you. Even our Earth is a giant magnet!

By Jesslyn Shields

Advertisement

An imaginary number is a value that's the square root of a negative number. It can't exist on a one-dimensional number line. We'll explain.

By Patrick J. Kiger & Austin Henderson

First discovered in the late 1930s, muons are passing through you and everything around you at a speed close to light, as cosmic rays strike particles in our planet's atmosphere. So what are muons and how are they informing the new physics?

By Patrick J. Kiger