Earth & Space
- Unpacked Why the Sea Bulges Away From the Moon Our poem about the tides said the far side of the Earth swells too. Here is the full reason, and what tides are quietly doing to the Earth and the Moon. Opens once you've read “Why the Beach Disappears Twice a Day”
- Unpacked Never Shelter Under the Tallest Tree Mr Bhalerao, having given up on the roof, chose the tallest tree in the society garden as his new safe spot. Here's exactly how a bolt chooses where to land, and why that tree is one of the worst places he could stand. Opens once you've read “Lightning Strikes Same Building Twice, Ignores Famous Saying”
- Unpacked Why the Bottom of a Frozen Lake Stays at 4 °C The ice poem promised that the fish below swim on at four degrees all day. Why four, and not zero? The answer involves two forces fighting inside every drop of cold water, and a lake that flips itself over every autumn. Opens once you've read “Ice Floats, Which Is Lucky for Fish”
- Unpacked Why Stars Stop Making Elements at Iron The stardust poem says stars fuse their way up to iron and stop, "for when it fuses iron, the profit's gone". Here's the single curve behind that line, which also explains nuclear power stations and why a star's death takes less than a second. Opens once you've read “Most of You Was Made Inside a Star”
- Unpacked The Pole Star Is Only Visiting Ms Kulkarni called Polaris "the only star in the sky that is not going anywhere tonight". The word that matters is "tonight". Over thousands of years, the Earth's axis wanders, and the job of Pole Star passes from star to star. Opens once you've read “How We Found North in a Power Cut”
- Unpacked Why Rain Doesn't Hit Like a Bullet The raindrop poem says rain "can sting, but never cuts you deep", because drag matches weight long before the ground. Without air, a drop from a cloud two kilometres up would arrive at about 700 km/h. Here's the maths of the brake. Opens once you've read “Raindrops Are Not Shaped Like Raindrops”
- Unpacked The Sun's Core Is Less Intense Than a Compost Heap In its statement, the Sun said its protons occasionally tunnel through a barrier, and called it Tuesday. Here's the rest of the chain, the ghostly particles it fires through you every second, and the reason the Sun doesn't explode. Opens once you've read “Sun Promises Five Billion More Years, Apologises for Summer”
- Poetry Why the Beach Disappears Twice a Day A poem about why the sea rises twice a day, not once.
- Unpacked Why Humid Heat Can Be Deadlier Than Dry Heat Nani's matka beat the Jodhpur heat by eleven degrees. The one in Mumbai managed two. Your body is a matka too, and the same number that measures a clay pot's limit measures yours. Opens once you've read “The Matka That Sweats to Stay Cold”
- Unpacked Why the Monsoon Arrives From the South-West The monsoon piece said moist ocean air flows in towards hot land. Then why doesn't it come straight from the south? Because on a spinning planet, nothing travels in a straight line, and the equator flips which way it bends. Opens once you've read “Why the Monsoon Almost Always Turns Up in June”
- Unpacked Your Head Is Older Than Your Feet The GPS piece said satellite clocks run fast by 38 millionths of a second a day, and that engineers simply correct for it. That sounds like an excuse for a broken clock. Here's why it isn't, and how scientists measured time running faster at the top of a staircase. Opens once you've read “Your Phone Finds You Using Clocks in Space”
- Unpacked How to Weigh Pluto Without Touching It The Pluto speech says early guesses made Pluto as big as Earth, and that it kept shrinking. What finally settled it was a smudge on a photograph in 1978, and one line of algebra any student can do. Opens once you've read “Pluto Isn't Sad, and You Shouldn't Be Either”
- Satire & Humour Gravity's Terms and Conditions (You Already Agreed) Nobody has ever read them. Everybody has agreed to them.
- Stories My Sister Versus the Thunderstorm A power cut, a thunderstorm and a little sister who won't come out from under the blanket until somebody can tell her exactly how far away it is.
- Poetry The Moon You See Is One Second Old A poem about looking up and seeing the past, from a Moon that is one second out of date to a galaxy whose light set off before there were people.
- Deep Dives Your Phone Finds You Using Clocks in Space The blue dot on your map depends on atomic clocks, the speed of light, a fourth satellite you didn't know you needed, and a correction from Einstein.
- Poetry Most of You Was Made Inside a Star A poem about where your atoms came from, and why the stars that made them stopped at iron.
- Rhetoric Give Every School a Telescope A speech arguing that the cheapest science lesson no school is teaching is pointed at the sky, and that it has almost nothing to do with zoom.
- Satire & Humour Sun Promises Five Billion More Years, Apologises for Summer The statement was released this morning and reached Earth eight minutes and twenty seconds later. It contained an apology, a physics lesson and a correction about summer.
- Poetry Raindrops Are Not Shaped Like Raindrops A poem about the shape everyone draws, the shape that actually falls, and why the rain never hits harder than it does.
- Unpacked Astronauts Are Falling All the Time and Missing Gravity's terms and conditions said astronauts float because they're falling "with very good aim". That sounds like a trick. Here's the exact aim required, worked out with a cannon Isaac Newton never fired. Opens once you've read “Gravity's Terms and Conditions (You Already Agreed)”
- Deep Dives The Sky Is Blue Because Air Is Picky The same tiny effect explains the blue of noon and the orange of evening, and why the sky on Mars does the opposite.
- Deep Dives Why the Monsoon Almost Always Turns Up in June A season's worth of weather arrives within a week or so of the same date every year. Here's the engine behind it, and why it partly runs on its own rain.
- Satire & Humour Lightning Strikes Same Building Twice, Ignores Famous Saying "I organised my whole life around that saying," said a man holding an umbrella, standing in the one spot he believed was safe.
- Stories How We Found North in a Power Cut The lights went out across the whole campsite, and the only phone with any battery went with them. Our instructor pointed at the sky and asked for our fists.
- Rhetoric Pluto Isn't Sad, and You Shouldn't Be Either A speech arguing that what happened to Pluto in 2006 was science at its best, and that it had happened once before, to a world nobody has made a T-shirt about.