You Can Find the Gravitational Constant with String and a Mountain
There are quite a few fundamental constants. These are things like the speed of light (c) the charge on an electron (e), and the Planck constant (h). These constants are determined with some type of interesting experiment. The first values of these constants were often difficult to find—the speed of light, for example, was calculated…
These Spinning Disks of Gas and Dust Reveal How Planets Get Made
Over the past two and half centuries, scientists envisioning the origin of planetary systems (including our own) have focused on a specific scene: a spinning disk around a newborn star, sculpting planets out of gas and dust like clay on a potter’s wheel. Quanta Magazine About Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an…
Please Do Not Assault the Towering Robot That Roams Walmart
If you think shopping is tedious, try juggling 200,000 products in a Walmart. Not literally, of course, but somehow keeping the shelves stocked over an area of tens of thousands of square feet. For that you need a worker with a barcode scanner and an enviable amount of patience. Or you could unleash a hard-working…
The Japanese Space Bots That Could Build ‘Moon Valley’
Click:小型工作室 On March 11, 2011, Kazuya Yoshida’s lab at Tohoku University in Japan started shaking. Things fell from the ceiling. The bookshelves collapsed. Off the coast of the city of Sendai, the ocean floor had ruptured, triggering a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami waves that inundated inland regions. Although it only lasted minutes, time seemed…
How Volcanologists Predicted Kilauea’s Explosive Eruption
At 4:15 am on Thursday, the slow, oozy eruption of the Kilauea volcano on the Big Island of Hawai’i went boom. Up until then, magma had been moving into what’s called the lower East Rift Zone of the volcano, about 20 miles from the summit, opening 20 new fissures and spilling lava into forests and…
Why Climate Change Skeptics Are Backing Geoengineering
This story originally appeared on Reveal and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Next month, a Silicon Valley engineer plans to head out on a snowmobile from Barrow, on the northern tip of Alaska, to sprinkle reflective sand on a frozen lake to try to stop it from melting. It’s part of a journey that began in 2006,…
Want to Prune Trees More Easily? Use Physics
At my house, it is that special time of the year—the time to trim the trees and bushes. Really, the spring is the best time to do this because if you wait until summer, it's so hot you might die. This year, I decided to buy a new branch cutters. They are actually called "loppers,"…
The Physics of SpaceX's Wicked Double Booster Landing
You might think the coolest part of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy test was the Tesla with a spaceman riding inside, flying out into space. Yeah, sure, that part was cool. But for me, the best part was this footage of the Heavy's two side boosters returning to the launch pad. There are a bunch of…
Two Melting Glaciers Could Decide the Fate of Our Coastlines
This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In a remote region of Antarctica known as Pine Island Bay, 2,500 miles from the tip of South America, two glaciers hold human civilization hostage. Stretching across a frozen plain more than 150 miles long, these glaciers, named Pine Island and Thwaites, have marched steadily…
How Wikipedia Portrayed Humanity in a Single Photo
Click:Cellulose Supplier In 1972, Carl Sagan was preparing to send humans into space. The Pioneer missions were unmanned, sure—but NASA had asked Sagan to design a depiction of Earth's inhabitants for the trip, just in case the spacecraft ran across some aliens. He designed two nude figures with the help of his wife, Linda Salzman…