Topic
Crystals
5 articles
Physics
Why is ice slippery?
Wet glass is not slippery. Cold metal is not slippery. Ice is, even at temperatures where nothing on it could possibly be melting, and the explanation everybody was taught turns out to be far too feeble to work.
Chemistry
Why does bread go stale faster in the fridge?
The fridge keeps milk drinkable and stops cheese sweating, so a loaf ought to be safe in there too. Instead it comes out hard and crumbly by the second day. Nothing has dried out, nothing has escaped, and the loaf weighs exactly what it did going in.
Chemistry
Why does ice float when almost every other solid sinks?
Drop a chip of hard candle wax into a pool of melted wax and it sinks. Almost every solid sinks in a puddle of itself. Ice does the opposite, and one feeble, fussy grip between molecules is the reason.
Physics
Why does a snowflake have six sides?
The pattern that decides the number six is millions of times too small to see, and yet it lands on your sleeve where anyone can count it. Something has to be doing the enlarging.
Technology
Why do sunglasses turn a screen black?
Tilt a pair of sunglasses in front of a laptop and the picture vanishes. Nothing has been switched off. The screen is doing something to its light long before it reaches your eyes.