Source: Wikipedia
There is an intuition about layered rock that is almost universal and substantially wrong.
The intuition is that layers accumulate steadily, like pages in a book, so that a…
There is a tendency to think of agricultural history as a matter of which crops were grown, and the tools receive far less attention than the plants.
That gets the…
Everything about a lake follows from how its basin was made. Ice, movement of the crust, volcanic collapse, dissolving rock and a river changing its mind all produce lakes, and…
The question to ask at any bridge is where the force goes. Straight down, outward against the banks, up into a tower, or along a chain of triangles - and…
There is a particular kind of historical blindness that comes from something becoming cheap.
Salt now costs almost nothing, is available everywhere, and is thought about mainly as a seasoning.…
There is a common assumption that a hot place is hot and a cold place is cold, and that a location is one or the other.
Deserts break that assumption…