Physics & Math, features and articles | Educational Science

Jan 24, 2012

Infants Grasp Gravity with Innate Sense of Physics

Infants as young as 2 months old already have basic knowledge of intuitive physics, researchers report in a new study. Most studies into infant cognition employ eye-tracking technology — psychologists can tease out what an infant is thinking and what she considers to be unexpected by following her gaze in...

Mar 21, 2012

Globe-Trotting Gnome: Images of a Gravity Experiment

Kern at the South Pole (Image credit: The Gnome Experiment)Gravity, the force that draws objects together in proportion to their mass, varies depending on where you're standing on Earth. That's because our planet is not a perfect sphere with uniform density. With varying gravity, an object's weight also changes. Now...

Mar 21, 2012

Globe-Trotting Gnome Highlights Earth's Weird Gravity

There aren't too many gardens at the South Pole. But there are, apparently, garden gnomes. A globe-trotting little garden gnome dubbed Kern recently visited Amundsen-Scott Research Station at the geographic South Pole in Antarctica. The inanimate traveler's trip was a take on the Traveling Gnome Prank, a joke that's been...

Jun 4, 2012

Mystery of Guinness Stout Bubbles Solved

The mystery of why the bubbles in the legendary beer Guinness sink as opposed to rise as one might expect has finally been solved — the secret apparently lies in the shape of the pint glasses from which Guinness is often sipped, researchers in Ireland say. After one pours a...

Aug 10, 2012

How an 'Anti-Gravity Treadmill' Helps Olympic Runners Recover from Injuries

Olympic runners may seem superhuman — able to race around the track without appearing to break a sweat — but they can suffer wear and tear in their joints just like the rest of us. This was the certainly case for U.S. Olympic runner Jenny Simpson, a medal contender in...

Aug 16, 2012

Hunt Is On for Gravity Waves in Space-Time

Because black holes are impossible to see, one of scientists' best hopes to study them is to look for the ripples in space-time, called gravitational waves, that they are thought to create. Gravitational waves would be distortions propagating through space and time caused by violent events such as the collision...

Dec 5, 2012

Mysterious Gravity Waves May Explain Clear-Skies Turbulence

SAN FRANCISCO — Gravity waves, mysterious waves that ripple unseen throughout the atmosphere, may be a major source of airplane turbulence, a new study suggests. The new findings, presented Tuesday (Dec. 4) here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, may help explain why planes get shaky in...

Feb 22, 2013

Image Gallery: Weird Gravity Waves

Star-studded (Image credit: Jean Rajchenbach, Alphonse Leroux, and Didier Clamond (CNRS and Université de Nice, France))Researchers have discovered a new type of gravity wave, one that is shaped like a star. Such bizarre waves result from a property called nonlinearity, in which a small or simple change results in a...

Feb 22, 2013

Bizarre Star-Shaped Gravity Waves Created

Star-shaped waves can form in vibrating tanks of liquid oil, researchers say. Learning more about such bizarre waves could shed light on counterparts that may exist elsewhere in nature, researchers added. Waves of all kinds often behave in an intuitively linear manner. For instance, a weight on a spring will...

Mar 13, 2013

Sex in Space: Plant Canoodling Is Weird Without Gravity

A real-time look at plant sex in an environment simulating microgravity reveals that agriculture in space might face challenges. The study also illuminates how gravity works on intercellular transport, a crucial process for mating plants and communicating human brain cells alike. There's no word yet, however, on how human sex...

May 2, 2013

Quantum Mechanics Trick May Detect Invisible Gravity Waves

The existence of gravitational waves, or ripples in space and time, has long been predicted, but the elusive phenomenon has eluded scientists for decades. Now researchers are proposing a new method to detect these cosmic wrinkles that relies on the quantum nature of atoms. Gravitational waves are a consequence of...

May 2, 2013

The Hunt for Elusive Gravity Waves Heats Up

In the next five years or so, scientists are poised to discover proof that space and time can wrinkle in the form of gravitational waves. These waves were predicted almost 100 years ago by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, but have yet to be seen. That could change soon...

Nov 4, 2013

Levitate Me: Water Droplets Dance, Defy Gravity (Video)

Wanna make a water droplet dance? Turns out all you need is a pair of opposing ultrasonic speakers. Called acoustic levitation, this technique holds droplets of water against gravity using ultrasonic waves. While this process has been done before, a team of scientists took the experiment a step further and...

Jan 14, 2014

Secret to 'Gravity-Defying' Beads Revealed

A chain of beads can defy gravity, acting like water spouting from a fountain, and now physicists reveal the secret behind this odd phenomenon. The findings could have surprising implications for everything from tethered satellites to elevators reaching from space to Earth. Chains are among the simplest, oldest and most...

Feb 24, 2014

An End in Sight in the Long Search for Gravity Waves (Op-Ed)

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Our unfolding understanding of the universe is marked by epic searches and we are now on the brink of discovering something that has escaped detection for many years. The...