Isaac Newton would never have discovered the laws of motion had he studied only cats. Suppose you hold a cat, stomach up, and drop it from a second-story window. If a cat is simply a mechanical system ...

How does a gecko manage to walk on the ceiling? Do cats drink like we do? And what happens when a dog shakes water off its coat? A new book explores how animals use physics in their daily lives. Matin ...

Most of us first hear about the irrational number π (pi)—rounded off as 3.14, with an infinite number of decimal digits—in ...

Physicists don't usually jump right into the most complicated version of a problem. Instead, they do a rough estimation, often called a “back of the envelope” calculation. So let's make some ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about physics, science, academia, and pop culture. As I noted yesterday, one of the central features of condensed matter ...

I have already indirectly talked about this before, but I see it more and more. Say you have a show. It has to be more than entertaining, it has to educational. How do you make things educational?

Black holes fascinate the public and scientists alike because they are where it all breaks down: matter, unlucky stars and space flotsam, and our understanding of physics. And while scientists have ...