The double-slit experiment: how a single particle goes through two slits at once
Fire electrons one at a time through two slits and they still interfere with themselves. What the double-slit experiment actually shows, and why 'observer' has nothing to do with your mind.
The Year Without a Summer: how one volcano erased 1816 and gave us Frankenstein
In 1816 snow fell in June and crops froze across the Northern Hemisphere. The cause was Mount Tambora, and its fingerprints are on Frankenstein, the bicycle, and a pandemic.
Tulip mania: the flower that cost more than a house, and the crash that mostly never happened
The tulip that cost more than an Amsterdam house, the crash that ruined a nation: the famous story of the first speculative bubble is mostly a myth. Here is what the Dutch archives, and a virus,...
The mantis shrimp punch is so fast it boils the water in front of it
The fastest strike in nature, the bubble that punches twice, and why the mantis shrimp's famous 16-color eyes don't work the way everyone says.
Why do mirrors flip left and right but not up and down? They don’t
A flat mirror never reverses left and right, or up and down. It flips front to back. The left-right swap you are so sure you see is a trick your own brain plays.
The Great Molasses Flood: the 35 mph wave that killed 21 people
In 1919 a burst storage tank sent 2.3 million gallons of molasses through Boston's North End at 35 mph, killing 21 people. The strange physics of why the slowest liquid in the kitchen turned deadly,...
