How Do Metal Detectors Work?
What sneaky invisible forces enable these instruments to locate buried treasure?
In Orbit You Have to Slow Down to Speed Up
Driving a spacecraft around a planet isn’t anything like driving on a planet. A physicist explains orbital navigation.
Easter Island’s Moai Statues May Have Walked to Where They Now Stand
An archaeological mystery gets one step closer to being solved.
AI Is Changing What High School STEM Students Study
A degree in computer science used to promise a cozy career in tech. Now, students’ ambitions are shaped by AI, in fields that blend computing with analysis, interpretation, and data.
A New Algorithm Makes It Faster to Find the Shortest Paths
A canonical problem in computer science is to find the shortest route to every point in a network. A new approach beats the classic algorithm taught in textbooks.
The Mystery of How Quasicrystals Form
New studies of the “platypus of materials” help explain how their atoms arrange themselves into orderly, but nonrepeating, patterns.
5 More Physics Equations Everyone Should Know
These five equations should be part of your mental toolkit. They might even improve your bowling score.
How Energy-Generating Sidewalks Work
These innovative pavings convert the kinetic energy of footsteps into clean electric energy.
This Giant Subterranean Neutrino Detector Is Taking On the Mysteries of Physics
Located in China, Juno is a 17-country collaboration that will try to detect neutrinos and antineutrinos to learn more about their mass.
The Quest to Find the Longest-Running Simple Computer Program
The Busy Beaver Challenge, a notoriously difficult question in theoretical computer science, is now producing answers so large they're impossible to write out using standard mathematical notation.