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Physics Facts

The Equivalence Principle

Four hundred years ago--or so the story goes--Galileo Galilei started dropping things off the Leaning Tower of Pisa: Cannon balls, musket balls, gold, silver and wood. He might have expected the ... Continue reading

Sonic Boom

They sound like thunder, but they're not. They're sonic booms, concentrated blasts of sound waves created as vehicles travel faster than the speed of sound. To understand how the booms are created, ... Continue reading

Bizarre Boiling

The next time you're watching a pot of water boil, perhaps for coffee or a cup of soup, pause for a moment and consider: what would this look like in space? Would the turbulent bubbles rise or fall? ... Continue reading

Without buoyancy, the vapor produced by boiling simply floats as a bubble inside the liquid after the heating has stopped. Surface tension effects cause the many small bubbles produced to coalesce into one large sphere.

Earth's Magnetism

Most ancient civilizations were aware of the magnetic phenomenon. Sailors in the late thirteenth century used magnetized needles floating in water as primitive compasses to find their way on the sea. ... Continue reading

Front page of the William Gilbert's book ' De Magnete' from 1600.