From spaghetti to AI and futuristic materials, the fantastic science behind things that appear mundane now–or one day will
Two opponets face off in an ancient strategy game. However, only one of them is a person, and he’s not winning. The historic victory of AlphaGo has made quite the round in the news. Why is it so important? Now for the short review: Go is a Chinese board game. One of its distinguishing features (at least for computer scientists) is the mind-boggling number of … Continue reading Why teach a computer to play Go
I grew up in a famously foggy place. Usually, it’s just a nuisance, but if you know how it works, at least you can add a little poetry to it. The first thing you need to know is that warm air keeps moisture better than colder one. Which is to say, water remains a vapor more easily in warm air. When a mass of warm … Continue reading A very foggy title
No Christmas landscape is complete without snow. Lots of snow. And every little snowflake is unique, everyone knows that! How come, tho? Snow is nothing else than teeny tiny ice crystals that form in the clouds and stay solid all the way down to the ground. Water crystallizes around microscopic imperfections, like dust particles floating in the clouds. Once the initial nucleus is formed, the … Continue reading Every snowflake is unique
90th minute. Beckham sets the ball down. If he scores, England goes to the world cup. He takes a look at the wall and shoots. The ball bends in mid-air, tricks the keeper and goes in the top corner. Ok, you don’t need to be Beckham to bend it like he does. But how did he do it? As you probably heard, physicists like leave … Continue reading The screwball post
There’s a beautiful country, with forests and deserts, vast salt lakes and tall mountains. A country where driving can be mortally dangerous. A country where your new plasma TV won’t last very long. ¡Bienvenidos a Bolivia! A plasma screen is basically a bunch of small neon lamps. They work by passing an electric current through a container full of gas (like, you guessed it, neon!): … Continue reading No country for plasma TVs
In the cold of Canada, a man blows a soap bubble, which immediately freezes. Since that’s awesome, the guy makes a nice video about it. Who knows, maybe he even knew about all the physics that was going on in front of his camera. Let’s start from the easiest thing: why does the bottom of the bubble freeze last? The answer is gravity: the outermost … Continue reading Frozen bubbles
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