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
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 to Calculate the Percent Error Formula
What Is the Area Formula for a Rectangle, a Triangle and a Circle?
How to Subtract Fractions
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
Converting kilogram measurements into pounds is not hard. We'll show you the textbook way plus two quick-and-dirty shortcuts.
By Mark Mancini
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
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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.
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
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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?
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
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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.
Multiplying 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.
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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?
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.
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?
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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
A unit circle is an important part of trigonometry and can define right angle relationships known as sine, cosine and tangent.
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.
Adrenochrome has been linked to schizophrenia and the LSD counterculture movement. Now QAnon conspiracy theorists say it's part of a child sex-trafficking cult. So what's the truth behind this chemical compound?
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Science requires that we make guesses, which is why we have confidence intervals.
Bayes' theorem describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. Sounds intimidating, but we'll walk you through it.
By Mark Mancini