There is a widespread mental model of a kite that treats the string as a leash, restraining something that would otherwise escape.
That model produces a specific prediction: cut the…
There is a category of traditional building technique that looks primitive and turns out to be doing something subtle, and thatch is the clearest example available.
The appearance suggests a…
There is a category of discovery that arrives sideways, as the residue of an argument about something else entirely.
The argument concerned whether a space containing nothing could exist. The…
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…
There is a useful question to ask about any standardised object: what is actually setting the dimension?
For a great many things the answer is a material property or a…
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…