Test yourself
Space · Answer first, then check
Why is it warmer in summer than in winter?
Feynman quotes, checked
Did he really say it? Each check takes a popular line back to the book, lecture or report it came from.
- Misattributed “Shut up and calculate!”
- Paraphrased “If you can’t explain something to a first-year student, then you haven’t really understood it.”
- Paraphrased “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”
- Paraphrased “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.”
- Real “I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”
- Real “What I cannot create, I do not understand.”
The science behind the answers
Longer answers that explain the why, sorted by subject.
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Thermodynamics, the Easy Way
Heat, entropy, and energy explained without the math — just intuition you can actually feel.
Take me to the Thermodynamics, the Easy Way hubSelected articles
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Brain Basics
What the brain actually does, and the popular stories about it that don't hold up, like dopamine as the "pleasure chemical".
Take me to the Brain Basics hubSelected articles
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Numbers That Fool Intuition
Probability and statistics break our common sense in predictable ways — and once you see how, you can stop being fooled.
Take me to the Numbers That Fool Intuition hubSelected articles
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Light, Sound, and Waves
Why the sky is blue, why an ambulance changes pitch as it passes, why a straw looks bent in water — wave physics is hiding in plain sight.
Take me to the Light, Sound, and Waves hub -
Space and the Cosmos
Stars, black holes, the Big Bang, the seasons — the universe explained from intuition up, not equations down.
Take me to the Space and the Cosmos hubSelected articles
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Chemistry, Made Simple
Atoms, bonds, acids, colours — how the matter around you actually works at the molecular level, in plain English.
Take me to the Chemistry, Made Simple hubSelected articles
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Body & Health Basics
Blood, breathing, the gut, fever — what your body is actually doing under the hood, and why the standard advice does (or doesn't) follow.
Take me to the Body & Health Basics hubSelected articles
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Common Misconceptions
Things you've heard your whole life that turn out to be wrong — and what the science actually shows.
Take me to the Common Misconceptions hubSelected articles
- Common Misconceptions Overview — Things You've Heard That Are Wrong
- Glass Is Not a Slow-Flowing Liquid — Old Cathedral Windows Aren't Sagging
- The Left-Brain / Right-Brain Myth — A Useful Story That Isn't True
- The 5-Second Rule — Bacteria Don't Wait 5 Seconds
- The '10% of Our Brain' Myth — Probably 100% Wrong
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Evolution and Deep Time
How life on Earth has changed over billions of years — and how we know. Natural selection, fossils, and the weird limbs we inherited.
Take me to the Evolution and Deep Time hubSelected articles
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Energy, Explained
Where energy comes from, how we move it around, and why it's never really created or destroyed. Solar, nuclear, batteries, fossil fuels — the physics under the headlines.
Take me to the Energy, Explained hub -
Forces and Motion
Classical mechanics in plain English. Newton's laws, what momentum actually is, why friction matters more than people think, and why spinning things behave so strangely.
Take me to the Forces and Motion hubSelected articles
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Quantum Weirdness Unpacked
What does it actually mean for a particle to be in superposition? What happens when we 'look'? Why don't cats appear half-alive? The deeper conceptual layer of quantum mechanics — measurement, decoherence, Bell's theorem, and the many-worlds question.
Take me to the Quantum Weirdness Unpacked hub -
Optics, Explained
How light actually behaves when it meets matter and instruments. Refraction, lenses, microscopes, telescopes, and rainbows — the physics that shaped how we see and what we can see.
Take me to the Optics, Explained hubSelected articles
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Superconductivity Up Close
Below a critical temperature, certain materials lose all electrical resistance and behave as macroscopic quantum systems. The deeper layer: Cooper pairs, the Meissner effect, the cuprate puzzle, and the practical magic of Josephson junctions.
Take me to the Superconductivity Up Close hub -
Materials & Matter
Why stuff behaves the way it does. The states of matter, why metals carry heat and current, what makes a diamond the hardest thing you'll touch, and why rubber snaps back — the physics hiding inside everyday materials.
Take me to the Materials & Matter hubSelected articles
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Flight & Fluids
How things move through air and water. Why a heavy plane stays up, why a steel ship floats, how a rocket pushes on nothing, and why a helium balloon rises — buoyancy, lift, and thrust explained without the equations.
Take me to the Flight & Fluids hub -
How Your Senses Work
How your body turns the world into signals your brain can read. Light into sight, vibrations into sound, and molecules into smell and taste — the elegant machinery behind seeing, hearing, and tasting, explained in plain terms.
Take me to the How Your Senses Work hubSelected articles
