Just because you see something done in a movie, that doesn't mean you should try it yourself. Take, for example, a human running on top of a moving train. For starters, you can't be sure it's real. In early Westerns, they used moving backdrops to make fake trains look like …

If you live in the US and missed the last total solar eclipse in 2017, good news! You're about to get another chance. There will be a total solar eclipse passing through Texas and the Midwest states on April 8. Remember that in a solar eclipse, the moon's shadow falls …

For geeks, there are several great holidays on the calendar. There is of course Mole Day (10/23) to commemorate Avogadro's number, which is huge (on the order of 1023) and hugely important in physics. There's e Day (2/7) for Euler's ubiquitous number (e = 2.718…). But the best is Pi …

Everyone's talking about heat pumps these days as a better way to warm your home. They even pull double duty, replacing your air conditioner in summer. The great thing is that they're generally more energy-efficient than old-school heaters, and they don't burn any fuel, so replacing that old gas furnace …

Wouldn't it be cool if you never had to charge your cell phone? I'm sure that's what a lot of people were thinking recently, when a company called BetaVolt said it had developed a coin-sized “nuclear battery” that would last for 50 years. Is it for real? Yes it is. …

Some of my favorite things to look for in the night sky (besides the International Space Station) are the planets. If you need help finding them, I recommend Heavens-Above. It's a website where you can enter your location and it will show you what's currently visible in your area. But …

Why are we even having this discussion? It's crazy that there are people who not only believe the Earth is flat like a pizza but also try to prove it. It's like trying to prove you shouldn't add pineapple as a topping on your pizza (which you obviously should). Maybe …

It's been crazy cold this week, even down where I live in Louisiana, thanks to an outbreak of a polar vortex. This frigid air is bad for all kinds of things, including football helmets, apparently. But it's actually a great time to demonstrate one of the basic ideas in science: …

Perhaps the most iconic instrument in modern rock is the guitar. It's really just a bunch of strings stretched across a board, which you can strum to make awesome tunes, thanks to the physics of waves and sound. A Wave Pulse on a String Let's start with a demo you …

A batter hits a baseball, NASCAR has a 21-car crash, or maybe Thor punches the Hulk. When one object collides with another, we can describe the interaction with an impact force. But putting a specific number on that force is actually quite difficult.Let’s go over some methods we can use …