As light passes through transparent objects, it bends. This can create optical illusions like disappearing bowls, bending pencils and mirages. This is called refraction, and is useful in magnifying glasses…
Water exists in three states – solid ice, liquid water and gaseous steam. Solids have a fixed shape and size. Liquids can change in shape, but have a fixed size….
Heat travels through solids by conduction (see also ‘Detecting Fake Silver: Conductivity of Metal’). Insulation can keep things warm and keep things cool by reducing heat transfer through conduction. Insulation…
Sounds are created from vibrations, whether it’s a tuning fork, the reed of a musical instrument, or sound coming from someone’s voice box. The vibrations make the air molecules move…
Water molecules at the surface of a glass of water are more strongly attracted to each other than to water molecules in the rest of the water. This creates a…
Hot water has more energy than cold water. This makes the water molecules move around more. Molecules that move more take up more space, but still weigh the same, so…
As air gets warm, the air molecules have more energy and move around more, taking up more space. As the warm air expands, it becomes less dense (see ‘Floating and…
Sir Isaac Newton was born in 1643 and died in 1727. He was a physicist, mathematician, astronomer, biologist and chemist. Newton developed three laws of motion, which described how things…
Magnets are attracted to some metals, and can attract and repel each other. The earth has a magnetic field, and so magnets can be used to find directions. Magnets and…
