Physics

Scientists still puzzled by a fractal discovered 500 years ago

In between painting the Mona Lisa and idly designing flying machines for fun, Leonardo Da Vinci occasionally got outside and looked up every now and again. Because he was Da Vinci, the moment he did, he discovered a new natural law. This one was about trees, and after five hundred years, scientists are still trying…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Dec 9

Watch an iridescent “kiss” between magnetized soap bubbles

Scientists at the University of Delaware added magnetic nanoparticles to soap bubbles to be able to manipulate their thickness, their color, and their motion. Take a look at the rainbow effect they created above, and check out a short black and white film of a bubble kissing a magnet while tiny liquid particles whirl inside…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Dec 8

How the Rubens’ Tube turns music into fire

The Rubens’ Tube is a lit gas jet attached via a tube to a stereo speaker. When the speaker kicks into gear, the changes in pressure along the tube make the the flames spring up or die down in waves as the music plays. You may have seen a version of this if you’ve attended…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Dec 8

We can encrypt secret messages in opal

A special kind of lab-created opal can be used to carry several encrypted messages at the same time. Find out how it can keep secrets for someone — and tattle on that same person — depending on what you spray it with. To do so, this lab-grown opal is applied to a metal chip in…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Dec 6

How Your Laser Pointer Works, At Least In Theory

The next time you’re annoying people from afar with your laser pointer, you’ll have a greater appreciation for its bright and focused beam after watching One Minute Physics break down the theoretical science behind how it works. While the explanation touches on complicated Bose–Einstein statistics, it basically comes down to excited photons bouncing back and…

Physics & Chemistry Andrew Liszewski Dec 5

A mathematical bug shows us why the 3D universe leads to Murphy’s Law

This really is the week for mathematical bugs. First, one beetle showed us why we live in a universe of despair. Now, another shows us that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong…and the more that things can go wrong, the more things will go wrong. See how a bug proves a knotty conjecture. Welcome…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Dec 5

A mathematical bug shows us why the 3D universe carries the possibility of despair. Really.

George Polya was a mathematician. Like most mathematicians, he was concerned with very strange concepts. One of them was the idea of “random walks,” or the completely random path a strolling insect might take. He took this concept and expanded it until he could prove the chances of getting hopelessly, unendingly lost in the universe.…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Dec 3

What does the Supercommittee failure mean for the future of scientific progress?

The levels of support received by any government-funded program are expected to fluctuate in kind with a country’s budgetary fortunes, but the history of federally funded science in the United States has been especially strained by the ongoing transformation of the nation’s budget. The recent failure of the congressional super committee (responsible for trimming 1.5…

io9 Robert T. Gonzalez and Annalee Newitz Dec 2

The Earth has a heartbeat we can see from space

The Earth pulses with a special kind of resonant wave. The Schumann Resonance has long been dubbed ‘the Earth’s heartbeat,’ and it has only been spotted from below. Recently, though, satellites have found signs of this electromagnetic heartbeat leaking up into space. The heartbeat of the earth goes at about eight cycles per second. Like…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Dec 1

Create fiery plasma and lightning, with a single grape

Plasma is what’s responsible for St Elmo’s Fire. It’s the solar wind that whips through our planetary system. It’s part of the ionosphere. It’s part of the sun. And you can create it in your microwave, with a grape (provided you have no further use for either the microwave or the grape.) Plasma is what…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Dec 1

How to Surf on a Cloud

How would you like to “hang ten” half a mile above the ground? A few glider pilots have figured out a way to ride on the clouds moving over the Australian countryside, going 35 miles per hour with no power whatsoever. These clouds are 600 miles wide, and a glider can surf them just like…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 29

Have you seen this unearthly figure in the mist?

The Spectre of the Brocken (or Broken) is sometimes seen in just the right combination of fog, sun, and position. It looks like the outline of a human being, shadowy in the mist, with a pale rainbow as a halo. It’s not supernatural, though — it’s just physics. Find out how this happens below. The…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 28

Enter the Hausdorff Dimension to measure coastlines

Alternate dimensions aren’t outside our everyday experience. In fact, we can use exotic dimensions, like fractional dimensions, to measure things as common as coastlines. Find out about the Hausdorff Dimension before your next trip to the sea. A point has zero dimensions. A line has only one dimension to its name. A plane has two,…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 27

How computer simulations of animal behavior led to a powerful new form of secret communication

How can we use foxes and rabbits help transmit secret messages? No animal cruelty is necessary – a new technique encodes messages using a predator-prey model normally used to predict the changes in animal populations. This advance in steganography could revolutionize the art of secrecy. Cryptography is the art of disguising messages so they’re incomprehensible…

io9 Sophie Bushwick Nov 25

Carbon nanotubes could be hiding bits of the universe

Carbon nanotubes can create a ‘perfect black’ that visually wipes out a dimension, making 3D objects look 2D. When draped over a substance, a thin coat of them renders the object invisible by absorbing all the light coming in. Scientists think that similar substances might be responsible for much of the ‘missing matter’ in the…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 25

Just how tall can a glacier get before it breaks?

On August 15th, this 200-foot-tall hunk of ice fell from the face of the gargantuan Hubbard Glacier in a process known as “calving,” crashing into Yakutat Alaska’s Disenchantment bay with an ear-splitting crack and a borderline unbelievable degree of force. A 200-foot-tall segment of ice is nothing to sneeze at — they rarely come any…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Nov 23

Yesterday’s supercommittee failure does not bode well for the future of science in America

The congressional supercommittee responsible for trimming 1.5 trillion dollars from the US federal budget has failed to deliver, triggering a decade-long, 1.2-trillion-dollar budget-slash set to begin in 2013. The effect that these cuts will have on science remains to be seen, but early reactions to news of the committee failure seem to indicate that resources…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Nov 22

How to Weigh a Million Dollar Bills Without a Scale (Or a Million Bucks)

In physics, approximations are important. Developing a predictive model for how something will move/behave/react based on information from another object or scenario can provide a helpful frame of reference. To illustrate this point, the always excellent YouTube series MinutePhysics shows us how to weigh a million dollar bills without having a scale, a single bill,…

Physics & Chemistry Adrian Covert Nov 21

Are we just a 3D hologram created by 2D information stored at the edge of the universe?

The images on your computer screen also exist in software as a series of ones and zeros. The music coming from your headphones might come from those same ones and zeros – or from carefully-pressed plastic, or from laser-etched metal. A lot of things you interact with daily come from information that’s stored in many…

io9 Sophie Bushwick Nov 18

How you depend on relativity every day, without knowing it

Special and general relativity help us see time, space, and energy in strange new ways. That strangeness seems to remove the theories from our everyday experience. Despite their exotic appeal, Einstein’s famous theories are part of our everyday life. Find out how you depend on special and general relativity to find your way around. The…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 18

Scientists still puzzled by a fractal discovered 500 years ago

Watch an iridescent “kiss” between magnetized soap bubbles

How the Rubens’ Tube turns music into fire

We can encrypt secret messages in opal

How Your Laser Pointer Works, At Least In Theory

A mathematical bug shows us why the 3D universe leads to Murphy’s Law

A mathematical bug shows us why the 3D universe carries the possibility of despair. Really.

What does the Supercommittee failure mean for the future of scientific progress?

The Earth has a heartbeat we can see from space

Create fiery plasma and lightning, with a single grape

How to Surf on a Cloud

Have you seen this unearthly figure in the mist?

Enter the Hausdorff Dimension to measure coastlines

How computer simulations of animal behavior led to a powerful new form of secret communication

Carbon nanotubes could be hiding bits of the universe

Just how tall can a glacier get before it breaks?

Yesterday’s supercommittee failure does not bode well for the future of science in America

How to Weigh a Million Dollar Bills Without a Scale (Or a Million Bucks)

Are we just a 3D hologram created by 2D information stored at the edge of the universe?

How you depend on relativity every day, without knowing it

These 1970s Predictions for Inflation in 2026 Show Things Could Be a Lot Worse

Bring Your Artemis II and ‘Project Hail Mary’ Excitement Back Down to Earth With this LEGO Technic Set of the the Sun, Earth, and Moon, Now at All-Time Low

Artemis 2 Day 10: Follow the Mission With Our Live Updates 🔴

Maul’s Lightsabers in ‘Shadow Lord’ Are Powered by Sam Witwer’s Screams

ASUS ROG Xbox Ally Hits Its Lowest Price on Amazon, Now Bundled With 3 Months of Xbox Game Pass as Stock Runs Low

Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 1) Quietly Drops to Black Friday Pricing for the First Time This Year, Now a More Affordable AI Smart Glasses Pick

Sony Raises PlayStation 5 Slim Disc Edition Prices, but Amazon Still Sells It at the Old Price

Andy Weir Wrote a New ‘Project Hail Mary’ Adventure, Just Not in the Way You’d Expect

Asus Zenbook A16 Review: Start Considering Snapdragon on PC, for Real

Aqara Thermostat Hub W200 Review: Almost Better than My Ecobee

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Let us help find what you are looking for...