Physicists and educationalists have many theories about why so few girls study physics. Valerie Jamieson goes back to school and asks female pupils what they really think. Vanessa Bennett, Callie ...

In the summer of 1999, Doc Bugg fielded my telephone inquiry seeking the fundamental law of matter and motion involving the depth of penetration of one object into another. It’s a simple principle, he ...

When I was a kid, my mother would sneak brussels sprouts on to my plate. I hated those revolting little orbs of bitterness – but Mother was wily. “It’s only a small one,” she’d say, as though ...

Let us apply principle the first: There are not many books that can make you feel small — infinitesimal, even — and not trouble your internal emotional architecture in the slightest. Principle the ...

The first semester of an undergraduate physics course invariably spends a lot of time on two big ideas: The momentum principle and the work energy principle. Both deal with forces acting on an object, ...

Chances are the shelter-in-place orders taking effect nationwide have interrupted your kids’ schooling, and as a result, keeping them cooped up has made them destroy everything you once called “home,” ...

Carlo Rovelli has written a wonderful primer on how physics can help us understand the universe and our place in it Yes, “brief” is right: 10 pages per lesson, and the typeface is large. There are ...

The Great Smoky Mountains are wonders of nature. Thanks to my kids, I get to experience them at times. My daughter used to have volleyball tournaments in Sevierville, Tennessee, and this weekend, the ...

Windows/Mac/Linux (All platforms): Phun, a free open-source, cross-platform 2D physics simulator, makes you want to pick up blocks, or maybe crayons, and learn more about the way things fall and move ...

It's been a year since Bill Gates left full-time work at Microsoft, but he's found plenty to keep him busy. In between trying to eradicate polio, tame malaria, and fix the broken U.S. education system ...