What the heck is energy?
Electricity, fuels, heating: energy is all around us. Physicists talk about it all the time to decode the mechanisms behind basically every process. Yet a good definition of energy is hard to come by: what is this “energy”?
How X-Ray vision works
Seeing through opaque objects is notoriously hard. Unless you have Superman’s “X-Ray vision”, or those “X-Ray specs” that for decades have promised teen voyeurs the ability to see through clothes. What would be the physics of that? And is it at all possible to have X-Ray vision?
Inspiration or deceit?
While listening to the always brilliant Hello Internet podcast, I stumbled upon a shocking question: am I deceiving you, my beloved reader, when I try to present science as something exciting?
How do metal detectors work?
You know the drill: hand luggage in the X-ray thingy, put coins-phone-keys-bracelets-watch-necklace in the tray and ready for the metal detector. How the eff does it know I forgot to take off my stupid belt?!
Star Wars, heroes, and Nobel Prizes
Among lightsabers, spaceships, and grandiose special effects, Star Wars: The Last Jedi also offers some reflection on who heroes are, and what part they play in history. And it made me think about my science heroes: Nobel prize winners. Continue reading “Star Wars, heroes, and Nobel Prizes”
Schrödinger’s… keys?
If I can’t find my keys, they could be on the counter, or in the kitchen table hiding under some junk mail. Or maybe I left them hanging on the door. Until I find them, I obviously can’t say which. It’s a bit like sealing a radioactive atom in a box and leaving it isolated: until I open the box I can’t say whether it decayed. Sounds familiar?
Are cats solid or liquid?
If you try to sit on a pond or drink a chair, you’ll quickly realize there’s a significant difference between solids and liquids. The rule of thumb I learned in school is that a liquid takes the form of its container. Then again, that would make this cat a liquid.
So the line between liquids and solids is a little more blurred than we’re told. Continue reading “Are cats solid or liquid?”
Changing environments level evolutionary playing fields
Where you grow up has a lot of influence on you, even if you are a bacterium. But when it changes, it makes life—and evolution—a lot more random.
Continue reading “Changing environments level evolutionary playing fields”
Colors and flavors of quarks
A quark’s color can be red, green, or blue. That’s fine. A quark’s flavor is, well… strange. Or charm, up, down, top, or bottom. How did scientists come up with such odd flavors?
Thunder before lightning: the new gravitational waves discovery
Since the first time gravitational waves were detected, people compared them to “hearing” the universe. Indeed, it’s a completely new way of observing the universe, one that does not need light. But it sure is an odd sort of “sound”.
Continue reading “Thunder before lightning: the new gravitational waves discovery”
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