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
Can you really shatter a glass with a high note?
How Do Disposable Hand Warmers Work?
Why Do Bubbles Pop?
What's the World's Strongest Superacid?
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?
The Surprising Silver Lining of the Atomic Age Nuclear Tests
How Are Coroners and Medical Examiners Different?
Viking Warrior in Ancient Grave Was a Woman
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 Can Minus 40 Fahrenheit Equal Minus 40 Celsius?
What Does the Term 'Six Degrees of Separation' Mean?
11 Basic Math Symbols and How to Use Them
Kummakivi, Finland's Balancing Rock, Seems to Defy the Laws of Physics
What Is Energy?
Could Newly Measured W Boson Break the Standard Model?
U.S. Scientists Achieve a Breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion. What Does That Mean?
Hisashi Ouchi Suffered an 83-day Death By Radiation Poisoning
Could Thorium Power the Next Generation of Nuclear Reactors?
Why Are School Buses Yellow?
Is This Black Hole Coming for You? It's Just an Optical Illusion
Why Distant Mountains Appear Blue to the Naked Eye
Learn More / Page 2
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
A perfect square is a number, but it can also be explained using an actual square.
Dividing fractions is easy once you learn a couple of rules and remember three words — keep, change and flip.
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Numerators and denominators, oh my! It sounds complicated, but learning how to multiply fractions is easy. It just takes three simple steps.
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.
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?
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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Magnetism is at work all around you. Even our Earth is a giant magnet!
A perfect storm of circumstances combined to create what one pool industry expert is calling "poolmageddon." Why? Because there's a major lack of chlorine in the U.S. right now. How will it affect the pool season?