Physics, Pixelated

A satellite with solar panels orbiting above the night-side Earth, sending signal beams down to glowing city lights at sunrise

How Does GPS Correct for Relativity? The 38 Mic...

Every GPS fix depends on Einstein. Satellite clocks gain roughly 38 microseconds a day relative to the ground, and the system is built to cancel it. Here is where the...

How Does GPS Correct for Relativity? The 38 Mic...

Every GPS fix depends on Einstein. Satellite clocks gain roughly 38 microseconds a day relative to the ground, and the system is built to cancel it. Here is where the...

Double-slit wall with glowing particles and an interference pattern on the screen behind

Does Observing a Particle Really Change It? Wha...

“Observation changes reality” is the most quoted line in pop quantum physics, and the least precise. Here is what measurement really does to a particle, what has been tested, and...

Does Observing a Particle Really Change It? Wha...

“Observation changes reality” is the most quoted line in pop quantum physics, and the least precise. Here is what measurement really does to a particle, what has been tested, and...

A glowing copper coil on a stone table beside a compass and a horseshoe magnet, an electromagnetic wave flowing out into the dark

How Are Electricity and Magnetism Connected? Fr...

Two hundred years ago electricity and magnetism looked like separate curiosities. Then a compass needle twitched, and within fifty years they had become a single theory that also explained light.

How Are Electricity and Magnetism Connected? Fr...

Two hundred years ago electricity and magnetism looked like separate curiosities. Then a compass needle twitched, and within fifty years they had become a single theory that also explained light.

A dim museum hall of marble pedestals holding a rainbow star, a pulsar in a glass dome and a crystal, with one pedestal left empty

Who Really Discovered It? Credit, Myths and Mis...

Physics history is full of single names attached to shared work. Here are nine cases where the real story is more interesting, told from primary sources and without inventing heroes...

Who Really Discovered It? Credit, Myths and Mis...

Physics history is full of single names attached to shared work. Here are nine cases where the real story is more interesting, told from primary sources and without inventing heroes...

The glowing golden fog of the early universe as the first light nuclei fuse together in bright sparks

How Did the First Elements Form? Big Bang Nucle...

Almost all the hydrogen and helium in the universe was made in its first few minutes. Here is how that cosmic kitchen worked, how we check it, and the two...

How Did the First Elements Form? Big Bang Nucle...

Almost all the hydrogen and helium in the universe was made in its first few minutes. Here is how that cosmic kitchen worked, how we check it, and the two...

A tightly packed nucleus of red protons and blue neutrons bound by crackling sparks of the strong force, with faint electron orbits

What Holds the Nucleus Together? The Strong For...

Protons repel each other, yet nuclei hold together. The answer is the strong force, first pictured by Hideki Yukawa as an exchange of mesons and now understood through quarks and...

What Holds the Nucleus Together? The Strong For...

Protons repel each other, yet nuclei hold together. The answer is the strong force, first pictured by Hideki Yukawa as an exchange of mesons and now understood through quarks and...