There is a constraint on ships that has no equivalent on land and that determines almost everything about how vessels are shaped and sized.
The constraint is that a vessel…
The organism does one thing: it consumes sugars and produces gas and alcohol. Bread keeps the gas and loses the alcohol; brewing keeps the alcohol and loses the gas. Everything…
A moving bicycle with nobody on it can stay upright for a considerable distance, correcting itself when pushed. Working out why took far longer than anybody expected, and the popular…
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…
There is a common assumption that different teas come from different plants, in the way that apples and pears come from different trees.
They do not. The overwhelming majority of…