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Thermodynamics
Ever since the start of the hot Big Bang, time ticks forward as the Universe expands. But could time ever run backward, instead?
Even though the leftover glow from the Big Bang creates a bath of radiation at only 2.725 K, some places in the Universe get even colder.
There’s an enormous evolutionary advantage for flamingos to stand on one leg, but genetics doesn't help. Only physics explains why.
If you think you know how an astronomical nova works, buckle up. You're in for a ride like you never expected.
It has no moving parts and could allow us to tap into renewable energy year round.
Capturing energy from clubbers could help power homes and buildings.
In Sun-like stars, hydrogen gets fused into helium. In the Big Bang, hydrogen fusion also makes helium. But they aren't close to the same.
Drop sodium in water, and a violent, even explosive reaction will occur. But quantum physics is needed to explain why.
We take for granted that time is real. But what if it's only an illusion, and a relative illusion at that? Does time even exist?
How efficiently could quantum engines operate?
Empty, intergalactic space is just 2.725 K: not even three degrees above absolute zero. But the Boomerang Nebula is even colder.
More than any other of Einstein's equations, E = mc² is the most recognizable to people. But what does it all mean?
Despite being the closest planet to the Sun, Mercury "only" reaches 800 °F at its hottest. Venus is always hotter, even at night.
The ten greatest ideas in science form the bedrock of modern biology, chemistry, and physics. Everyone should be familiar with them.
We frequently say it's 2.725 K: from the light left over all the way from the Big Bang. But that's not all that's in the Universe.
∆G = ∆H - T∆S is one of the most abstract formulas in science, but it is also one of the most important. Without it, life cannot exist.
How can you "touch the Sun" if you've always been inside the solar corona, yet will never reach the Sun's photosphere?
Galaxies can have regions both hotter and colder than the background radiation of the Universe. When we talk about the depths of space, we get this picture in our heads […]
If you go young, blue, and massive, you top out at 50,000 K. That’s peanuts! Surprise! The biggest, most massive stars aren’t always the hottest. Although its neighbor, Messier 42, […]
Has all this happened before, and will all this happen once again? There are only a few questions, when we ask them, that force us to reckon with the fundamental nature […]
If everything eventually dies and decays, is there a way to prolong the inevitable? Our Universe, as it exists today, puts us in an incredibly privileged position. Had we come […]
Time always moves in the same direction, but what if the Universe were contracting? As we step forward in time, a number of things always seem to happen together. Objects […]
If you forgot to defrost your turkey, definitely don’t put it in a deep fryer. Every year, households all across the United States face a troubling dilemma with no good solutions: […]
Entropy always increases, but that doesn’t mean it was zero to start with. One of the most inviolable laws in the Universe is the second law of thermodynamics: that in any […]
Once only dark energy remains, empty space still won’t be completely empty. Imagine, if you dare, the very end of the Universe. The stars — past, present, and future — have all burned out. […]
No matter how accurately you place two Plinko chips, you cannot count on the same outcome twice. Of all the pricing games on the iconic television show The Price Is Right, […]
We still don’t know how the information encoded onto it gets out. No matter what you do in the Universe, its overall entropy always increases. Even when we put things in […]
Is the “big freeze” our inevitable fate, or can dark energy save us? When we look out at the Universe today, we see sources of light practically everywhere we look. In […]
Just because you have “star” in your name doesn’t mean you are one. When we think about the objects in our Universe, they fall into two categories: self-luminous objects, like stars, […]