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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe7atm1x6Mg If you want to understand theoretical physics these days—as much as is possible without years of specialized study—there are no shortage of places to turn on the internet. Of course, this was not the case in the early 1960s when Richard Feynman gave his famous series of lectures at Caltech. In published form, these […] How Richard Feynman’s Diagrams Revolutionized Physics is a...

The pandemic has resulted in a lot of people reinventing their fitness regimens, investing in pricey items like Mirror and Peloton bikes to turn homes into home gyms. Personally, we’re saving our pennies until some Etsy seller replicates the mechanical therapy systems of Dr. Gustav Zander (1835–1920). From the mid-19th century through WWI, these machines were at the forefront […] Behold the Steampunk Home Exercise Machines from the...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsVERdfEj24 Before our eyes, Japanese artist Kenichi Kanazawa creates crisp shapes and geometric patterns with no special tools but sand and sound, the kind of work that at first looks expressly designed to go viral on social media. But he’s been at it much longer than that: “Originally a sculptor by trade,” according to Spoon & […] The Geometry of Sound: Watch Artist Kenichi Kanazawa...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TqqdOcX4dc Today we take a ride on the world’s oldest electric suspension railway—the Wuppertal Schwebebahn in Germany. Actually, we’ll take two rides, traveling back in time to do so, thanks to YouTuber pwduze, who had a bit of fun trying to match up two videos discovered online for comparison’s sake. The journey on the left was filmed in 1902, […] Trips on the World’s Oldest Electric Suspension Railway...

No matter how little we know of the Hindu religion, a line from one of its holy scriptures lives within us all: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." This is one facet of the legacy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist who left an outsized mark on history. For his […] J. Robert Oppenheimer Explains How He Recited a...

In our time, few branches of science have taken as much public abuse as quantum physics, the study of how things behave at the atomic scale. It's not so much that people dislike the subject as they see fit to draft it in support of any given notion: quantum physics, one hears, proves that we […] The Map of Quantum Physics: A Colorful Animation...

Albert Einstein was a precocious child. At the age of twelve, he followed his own line of reasoning to find a proof of the Pythagorean Theorem. At thirteen he read Kant, just for the fun of it. And before he was fifteen he had taught himself differential and integral calculus. But while the young Einstein […] Albert Einstein’s Grades: A Fascinating Look at His...

Richard Feynman wasn’t just an “ordinary genius.” He was, according to mathematician Mark Kac “in his taxonomy of the two types of geniuses,” a “magician” and “a champion of scientific knowledge so effective and so beloved that he has generated an entire canon of personal mythology,” writes Maria Popova at Brain Pickings. Many a Feynman […] This is What Richard Feynman’s PhD Thesis Looks...

After winning the Nobel Prize, physicist Max Planck "went around Germany giving the same standard lecture on the new quantum mechanics. Over time, his chauffeur memorized the lecture and said, 'Would you mind, Professor Planck, because it’s so boring to stay in our routine, if I gave the lecture in Munich and you just sat […] The “Feynman Technique” for Studying Effectively: An Animated...

Whether you’ve volunteered to self-quarantine, or have done so from necessity, health experts worldwide say home is the best place to be right now to reduce the spread of COVID-19. For some this means layoffs, or remote assignments, or an anxious and indefinite staycation. For others it means a loss of safety or resources. No […] Isaac Newton Conceived of His Most Groundbreaking Ideas...

No matter how well you remember your physics classes, you most likely don't remember learning any stories in them. Theories and equations, yes, but not stories — yet each of those theories and equations has a story behind it, as does the entire scientific enterprise of physics they constitute. The video above from the BBC's Dara […] The Story of Physics Animated in 4 Minutes:...

Perpetual motion is impossible. Even if we don't know much about physics, we all know that to be true — or at least we've heard it from credible enough sources that we might as well believe it. More accurately, we might say that nobody has yet figured out how to make a machine that keeps […] Leonardo da Vinci’s Inventions Come to Life as...

Remember the posters that decorated your childhood or teenaged bedroom? Of course you do. Whether aspirational or inspirational, these images are amazingly potent. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit what hung over my bed, especially in light of a certain CGI adaptation… No such worries with a set of eight free downloadable posters honoring eight female trailblazers in the fields […] Download Beautiful Free Posters Celebrating the Achievements of...

Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman is “famous in a number of dimensions,” says science and math explainer Grant Sanderson of the YouTube channel 3blue1brown in the video above. “To scientists, he’s a giant of 20th century physics… to the public, he’s a refreshing contradiction to the stereotypes about physicists: a safe-cracking, bongo-playing, mildly philandering non-conformist.” […] Richard Feynman’s “Lost Lecture:” An Animated Retelling is...

The science of optics and the fine art of science illustration arose together in Europe, from the early black-and-white color wheel drawn by Isaac Newton in 1704 to the brilliantly hand-colored charts and diagrams of Goethe in 1810. Goethe’s illustrations are more renowned than Newton’s, but both inspired a considerable number of scientific artists in […] The Phenomena of Physics Illustrated with Psychedelic Art...

Many of us have heard of Stephen Hawking but know him only as a symbol of a powerful mind dedicated for a lifetime to the thorniest problems in astrophysics. Even more of us have heard of black holes but know of them only as those dangerous things in sci-fi movies that suck in spaceships. But […] Stephen Hawking’s Black Hole Paradox Explained in Animation...

I sometimes wonder: why do people post amateur repair videos, made with smartphones in kitchens and garages, with no obvious commercial value and, often, a level of expertise just minimally above that of their viewers? Then I remember Richard Feynman’s practical advice for how to learn something new—prepare to teach it to somebody else. The […] Richard Feynman’s Technique for Learning Something New: An...

Photo by ESO/G. Huedepohl, via Wikimedia Commons Queen couldn't possibly have been Queen without Freddie Mercury, nor could it have been Queen without Brian May. Thanks not least to the recent biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, the band's already larger-than-life lead singer has become even larger still. But its guitarist, despite the film's surface treatment of his character, […] Queen Guitarist Brian May Is Also an Astrophysicist:...