Everything is built around a solid form, and everything afterwards is a set of conflicting requirements settled in a particular way. Here are fifteen decisions inside any pair.
1. It…
There is a small category of objects that are fully explained by one diagram, and this is one of them.
A vacuum flask is a container inside another container, with…
There is a piece of physics that almost everybody half-knows and that is more interesting stated precisely.
The half-known version is that things fall faster and faster. That is true…
There is a widespread assumption about roads that is understandable and backwards.
The assumption is that the hard black surface is the road, and that what lies beneath it is…
There is a common assumption about concealment that is intuitive and mostly wrong.
The assumption is that hiding means matching — that the way to be invisible is to be…
There is a useful principle about signals that applies well beyond sound, and whistles are the clearest everyday demonstration of it.
The principle is that being heard is a matter…