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February 5 - February 21, 2024
They say there are no stupid questions. That’s obviously wrong; I think my question about hard and soft things, for example, is pretty stupid. But it turns out that trying to thoroughly answer a stupid question can take you to some pretty interesting places.
In the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford University sits a battery-powered bell that has been ringing since the year 1840. The bell “rings” so quietly it’s almost inaudible, using only a tiny amount of charge with every motion of the clapper. Nobody knows exactly what kind of batteries it uses because nobody wants to take it apart to figure it out.
When radioactive particles travel through materials like water or glass, they can emit light through a sort of optical sonic boom. This light is called Cherenkov radiation,
Destroying angel is a small, white, innocuous-looking mushroom. If you’re like me, you were told never to eat mushrooms you found in the woods. Amanita is the reason why.3
Our hair follicles and stomach lining also divide constantly, which is why chemotherapy can cause hair loss and nausea.
A neutron star is what’s left over after a giant star collapses under its own gravity.
When a star runs out of fusion fuel, it contracts (in a complicated process involving several explosions) until the collapse is stopped by the quantum laws that keep matter from overlapping with other matter.1 If the star is heavy enough, it overcomes that quantum pressure and collapses further (with another, more massive explosion) to become a neutron star. If the remnant is even heavier, it becomes a black hole.2
