Physical Science
Physical science is the study of the physical world around you. Learn about everything from electricity to magnetism in this section.
Brown Noise vs. White Noise: Which Is Best for Quality Sleep?
Can a sound wave kill you?
Can two cans and a string really be used to talk over a distance?
Delta-8 vs. Delta-9: Comparing Types of THC
Strong Bases: Properties, Applications and Examples
Comparing Strong Acids and Weak Acids
How Electricity Works
How Faraday Cages Work
How Gasoline Works
What do bugs have to do with forensic science?
5 Things You Didn't Know About Autopsies
Do a Person’s Fingerprints Change After Death?
How Alchemy Paved the Way for Chemistry
How did Nikola Tesla change the way we use energy?
Time May Not Exist, Say Some Physicists and Philosophers
Why Does Ice Stick to Your Fingers?
What if I forgot to remove a piercing before an MRI?
A Kid-friendly Introduction to Magnets and Magnetism
Rhombus Properties and Perimeter Formula
Deciphering 'Greater Than,' 'Less Than' and 'Equal To' Symbols
Getting a Handle on Fraction-to-Decimal Conversions
5 Hugely Fun Facts About Mass (Not Weight)
Antarctica's Spooky Cosmic Rays Might Shatter Physics As We Know It
Entropy: The Invisible Force That Brings Disorder to the Universe
The Demon Core: A Tale of Atomic Ambition and Tragic Fate
Half-Life Formula: Components and Applications
Could an 'X17 Particle' Hint at a Fifth Force in the Universe?
Why Are School Buses Yellow?
HowStuffWorks: How To Draw An Impossible Shape
What Are the Colors in the Visible Spectrum?
Learn More / Page 11
Nuclear meltdowns can be scary, but it's important to understand what causes them. Learn about how nuclear meltdowns work.
By Robert Lamb & Desiree Bowie
Mathematics achieves the sublime. Sometimes, as with tessellations, it rises to art. In their simplest form, tessellations consist of a single shape that repeats over a two-dimensional plane without any gaps. Why was M.C. Escher so fixated on them?
Fractals have been around forever but were only defined in the last quarter of the 20th century. Think you can wrap your brain around how fractals work?
By Craig Haggit & Yara Simón
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A world without math is unimaginable. It's a part of who we are. It's the analytical juice of our left brain. In the words of physicist Richard Feynman, even a fool can use it. So why do so many of us turn our backs on numbers?
By Robert Lamb
We're all exposed to tiny levels of radiation, but a blast of it can leave you in agony — that is, if it doesn't kill you outright. What is it, what causes it and how can we treat it?
What happens when there's too much voltage? Learn about the difference between voltage surges and spikes from this article.
For many of us, a number is just a number, a bit of information that tells you, say, what time it is. But mathematicians look at that same number and divine relationships that underlie nature itself. Ready to enter the trippy world of number theory?
By Robert Lamb
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That's one seriously big number, and technically Amedeo Avogadro didn't even come up with it. So how did the Italian chemist make such an indelible (numerical) mark on the wonderful world of chemistry?
Hand warmers work through simple chemistry. A massively sped-up version of oxidation (the chemical reaction that makes rust) is to thank.
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?
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.
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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.
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 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?
A new geometric shape called the "einstein" shape has been discovered and when you tile it, no repeating pattern emerges.
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Math is a language of symbols and equations and knowing the basic signposts is the first step in solving mathematical problems.
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
There are two different scales of measuring temperature on Earth, but they merge at just one very cold number.
It looks completely impossible that this rock should stand, balanced as it is, but it has not moved since the last ice age.
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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?
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.
Magnetism is at work all around you. Even our Earth is a giant magnet!
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.
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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?
The lava-like material that formed after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster is a deadly example of corium, a hazardous material created only after core meltdowns. Five minutes next to it can kill a human.