There is a useful question to ask about any everyday object: what did people do before it, and did they think they had a problem?
For most tools the answer…
Two facts explain most of this: freezing requires a starting point, and water vapour can turn directly to ice without becoming liquid first. Here are twelve consequences.
1. Freezing Needs…
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 demonstration that has been used to teach chemistry for well over a century, and it works because a candle is far more complicated than it looks.
The…
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…
Two materials are held apart in a state where one wants to give up electrons and the other wants to take them, and the separation is the entire trick. Here…