Engineering
- Unpacked How an Old Ball Swings the Wrong Way Arjun learned to swing the ball by tilting the seam. Then he watched a Test match where the bowler did everything the same and the ball went the other way. Here's what happens when the boundary layer turns turbulent on both sides. Opens once you've read “The Day My Cricket Ball Refused to Swing”
- Unpacked Why Fast Charging Slows Down at 80 Per Cent The charging piece pictured lithium being marched uphill into the graphite. So why does the march race to 80 per cent and then crawl? Because the last few seats in a crowded hall are the hardest to fill. Opens once you've read “Charging Your Phone Means Pushing Lithium Uphill”
- Deep Dives How a Rock Ended Up Running Your Phone Nearly every phone, laptop and satellite begins as a lump of quartz. Getting from one to the other is one of the strangest supply chains in the world.
- Deep Dives Your Fridge Is Secretly Heating Your Kitchen Heat naturally flows from hot to cold. Your fridge spends all day forcing it the other way. Here's how.
- Unpacked How One Atom in a Million Turns Sand Into a Switch The silicon piece ended with nine-nines purity as "a blank page". Here's what chipmakers write on it: a few atoms of phosphorus and boron, placed with extraordinary care, which turn a crystal of rock into billions of tiny switches. Opens once you've read “How a Rock Ended Up Running Your Phone”
- 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.
- Stories The Day My Cricket Ball Refused to Swing Arjun polished the ball like a fast bowler on television. It went perfectly, disappointingly straight, and the reason was in his fingers.
- Deep Dives Charging Your Phone Means Pushing Lithium Uphill Plug in your phone and nothing seems to happen. Inside, billions of billions of lithium ions are being forced to move house, from a comfortable home to a cramped one, and that is where the energy is stored.