Fact-based Cosmic Questions
Why Is the Way Back Always Shorter?
The journey home takes exactly as long as the journey out, and it is over noticeably sooner, which is a strange thing for an hour to do.
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Cosmic Questions
Tiny ponderings about a very big universe.
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Fact-based Cosmic Questions
Where Does a Lap Go When You Stand Up?
A cat can find one instantly, it holds a plate perfectly well, and the moment you get out of the chair it is simply not anywhere.
Fact-based Cosmic Questions
Why Do We Tidy Before the Cleaner Comes?
You are paying somebody to clean the house, and the night before, you clean the house.
Fact-based Cosmic Questions
What Is the Smallest Thing You Would Still Call a Hill?
There is no official height at which a bump becomes a hill, and philosophers have a 2,000-year-old name for why that line is so hard to draw.
Fact-based Cosmic Questions
Why Does an Empty House Sound Different?
Without carpets, curtains and sofas to soak it up, sound bounces off bare walls and floors for longer, and you can hear the difference the moment you walk in.
Fact-based Cosmic Questions
Do Plants Get Bored?
A houseplant spends its life in one pot, but it is far from idle: plants sense light, gravity and even touch, and can switch on touch-response genes within minutes.
Fact-based Cosmic Questions
Why Does a Room Look Different in a Photograph?
A photo records everything from one fixed point, while your eyes see only a small area sharply and your attention picks out what matters, so the picture rarely matches what you saw.
Fact-based Cosmic Questions
Do Fish Know When It Is Raining?
Rain fills the water with sound, but much of that sound is pitched far higher than many fish can hear, so the answer is less obvious than it seems.
Fact-based Cosmic Questions
Why Do We Blow on Food That Has Already Gone Cold?
Blowing really does cool hot food, through convection and evaporation. On soup that is already lukewarm, it does almost nothing, and we do it anyway.
Fact-based Cosmic Questions
Why Is the Last Stair Always the One That Gets You?
Stumbles on stairs cluster at the first and last few steps, and the reason has more to do with what your body expects than with your legs.