Frozen bubbles
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
Aristotle is always wrong, but that’s alright
The Sun, the planets and the whole universe revolve around the Earth while hanging on crystal spheres. The velocity of a body is proportional to the force that pushed it. A rock falls to the ground because that’s its natural element. Those are only a few of the teachings of Aristotle that, forced on posterity for centuries, held back scientific progress. Whatever your branch of … Continue reading Aristotle is always wrong, but that’s alright
Cats and not
AnThere’s a sealed box, inside the box is a cute cat and a device that can kill it as soon as a radioactive atom decays. Were we to open the box, would the cat be alive? And how is it doing while the box is still closed? In extreme synthesis, this is the idea of the famous “Schrödinger’s cat” experiment (thought experiment! no actual … Continue reading Cats and not
Mercurial sunset
Nothing’s more naturally predictable than the progression of a day, right? The Sun comes up in the East, rises through the sky, then sets in the West. That’s part of the fascination of places where it isn’t quite so. However, one of the places with the craziest days is rather unaccessible: Mercury. It’s the closest planet to the Sun, so it feels the star’s gravitational … Continue reading Mercurial sunset
Speed limits
Light travels at about 299792458 meters per second. Why not more? or less? Why can’t it have more than one speed? To tell the truth, light does have more than one speed: the one we know, the one that nothing can surpass, is the speed of light in a vacuum. But if it goes through a material, light travels slower. More than that, light of … Continue reading Speed limits
PhysicalLove 