Science
The rules of reality, and the places they get wonderfully odd.
Science is full of surprises that become even better once you know the reason. Water can occupy several states together, the same element can form very different materials, and tiny timing differences can matter to a navigation system. These facts explore the rules behind familiar objects and the conditions under which those rules produce unexpected results. The stories connect a memorable observation to a mechanism, a measurement or a carefully defined comparison. They also keep laboratory conditions separate from everyday ones. You do not have to lose the sense of wonder to gain a more accurate picture of reality.
By the numbers
All science facts
Water can boil and freeze at the same time.
The Great Wall is difficult to distinguish from orbit with the naked eye.
The Eiffel Tower grows about 15 centimeters taller in summer.
Diamond and graphite are two very different forms of carbon.
Bananas are slightly radioactive.
Sound travels more than four times faster in water than in air.
GPS would fail within a day if it ignored Einstein's relativity.
An ordinary puffy cloud can weigh more than a million pounds.
The meter is defined using the speed of light in a vacuum.
The second is defined by a cesium-133 atomic transition.
A mole contains an exact number of specified particles.
The kilogram is no longer defined by a metal cylinder.
Absolute zero is exactly -273.15 degrees Celsius.
Water expands by about nine percent when it freezes into ordinary ice.
Gallium can melt at a temperature below normal human body temperature.
Mercury is liquid at ordinary room temperature.
Helium was detected in sunlight before it was isolated on Earth.
Bromine is the only nonmetallic element liquid at ordinary room temperature.
Nitrogen makes up about 78 percent of dry air.
Ozone and breathable oxygen are different molecules of the same element.
One pH unit represents a tenfold change in hydrogen-ion activity.
Celsius and Fahrenheit give the same number at minus forty.
Cutting a bar magnet does not isolate a north pole.
Sound cannot travel through an ideal vacuum.
A primary rainbow is centered on the point opposite the Sun.
Air scatters short wavelengths of visible light more strongly than long ones.
Dry ice turns directly from solid to gas at normal atmospheric pressure.
Ordinary window glass is an amorphous solid, not a slowly flowing liquid.
A superconductor can carry direct current without electrical resistance.
Carbon-14 decays with a half-life of about 5,730 years.
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