Human language is an incredible thing: a combination of mouth sounds that we combine into words, sentences, poems, and constitutions. They carry meaning, emotion, and power. But underneath it all, language is really just physics. In this...

The year is 1030 CE. Chu Hong's best friend, Liang Gao, tells him that the local magistrate has been spotted holding a surprise archery competition in a nearby town and will arrive at their village soon. This is Hong’s chance to showcase...

This video is chapter 6 in my series on special relativity, and it covers the topic of relativistic addition of velocity: aka, how things that are moving relative to one inertial reference frame, which is moving relative to another...

Corruption is often defined as misuse of a position of power for personal gain. And while corruption in politics is nothing new, it isn't limited to the political sphere; it can happen in schools, sports, businesses, or religious...

Sure, you can point to the geographic north pole on a globe. But getting there, even with fancy equipment like GPS, isn't so straightforward. So scientists are looking into a navigation tool some animals use naturally.

It’s a cold morning in 15th century France and you’re off to the barber for a shave and haircut. You hear the familiar sound of singing inside and eye a bowl of blood in the window. You grab a cup of ale and examine the array of teeth...

Most people don't love cockroaches. And thanks to that lack of love, the females of one species of cockroach might not love their males looking for love. But lucky for both of them, evolution might be finding a way around it.<br/>

Quantum mechanics forbids us from measuring the universe beyond a certain level of precision. But that doesn’t stop us from trying. And in some cases succeeding, by squeezing the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to its breaking point.

The weird rules of quantum mechanics lead to all sorts of bizarre phenomena on tiny scales— particles teleporting through walls or being in multiple places at once or simultaneously existing and not. Shame all this magical behavior...

“A moving arrow is at rest.” This is obviously a nonsensical contradiction. But Zeno, a Greek philosopher famous for his metaphysical trolling, devised a paradox whose conclusion is just this. Here’s how it goes: if you look at an...

The double slit experiment radically changed the way we understand reality. Find out what the ramifications of this experiment were and how we can use it to better comprehend our universe.

Kinetic and potential energy are defined as combinations of more basic quantities: position, velocity and mass. These combinations are chosen so that their sum is conserved. It’s actually remarkable that there’s any such combination of...

Contrary to common belief, jesters weren't just a medieval European phenomenon but flourished in other times and cultures. The first reliably recorded jester is thought to be You Shi, of 7th century BCE China. Jesters had unique...

Sometimes called "W-sitting," this popular way for kids to plop in front of the TV has been stigmatized for decades. For most people, research indicates it's just fine. But a small percentage of W-sitters do have a problem.

The equator is a clear and accurate line around Earth that makes measuring latitude a precise science, but when it came to figuring out how to do that with longitude, British sailors were at a loss. Until they devised a competition....

Hosted by: Hank Green

Everybody poops ... but is it possible that you're pooping all wrong? Learn the science behind the greatest debate of our time: squat vs. sit! Thanks to Patreon Patron Maia for asking this important question!

Long ago, the Hawaiian wind goddess wielded a gourd that housed the winds of the Islands. It came to hold her bones, along with the life force they carried, and was eventually passed to her grandson, Paka'a. Like his father before him,...

Between them, general relativity and quantum mechanics seem to describe all of observable reality.

In 2009, researchers ran a simple experiment. They took everything we know about our solar system and calculated where every planet would be up to 5 billion years in the future. They ran over 2,000 simulations, and the astonishing...

Today we're going to talk about robots! Robots are often thought as a technology of the future, but they're already here by the millions in the workplace, our homes, and pretty soon on the roads. We'll discuss the origins of robotics to...

In this video Paul Andersen explains how scalar fields can be used to show the distribution of scalar quantities. The most important scalar fields in AP Physics 2 deal with electric potential. Scalar addition can be used to combine...

Black holes have mystified physicists for decades, but with the help of quantum mechanics, we are beginning to make serious progress in understanding these strange objects. This week on Space Time, Matt dives deeper into the physical...

From calories to sleep, there always seems to be something we're not doing right. Luckily scientists have looked into this and come up with some helpful advice to keep us happy and healthy.