The Bars Are Not the Code
The intuitive reading of a barcode is that each bar is a symbol, like a letter, and the sequence of bars spells out the…
Almost Everybody Has the Explanation Wrong
The standard account, repeated more or less universally, is that lying on an arm cuts off the blood supply, the limb is starved of…
Try It Before Reading Any Further
Press a finger against one nostril and breathe in through the other. Then swap. For most people, at most moments, the two are noticeably…
Source: Wikipedia
The Problem It Was Invented to Solve
Source: Wikipedia
White paint on a road is nearly useless at night. A headlight beam strikes a painted line at a very shallow…
The Counterintuitive Fact at the Centre of It
For the first half of the twentieth century, cars were built to resist damage. A heavy chassis, thick steel, rigid construction. After…
The Universal Misunderstanding
Everybody believes the same thing: the stomach is empty, so it complains. The noise is the body asking for food, and once the food arrives the noise…