Category
Physics
All Nolege News articles on Physics.
4 articles
Physics
Grind up a peacock feather and the blue disappears. There was never any blue in it
Some of the most intense colours in nature contain no pigment at all. They are produced by structures the size of a wavelength of light — which means the colour is in the geometry, cannot fade, and can be engineered into paint, packaging and banknotes.
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Physics
Two flat metal surfaces touch across about one per cent of their area. The rest is air, and that is what cooks your laptop
A processor does not overheat because copper is a poor conductor. It overheats at the joins — and at the nanoscale, heat behaves in a way that is exactly opposite to the usual assumption that smaller is better. That inversion is a problem for chips and the entire basis of thermoelectrics.
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Physics
How an MRI scanner sees inside you without radiation
An MRI scanner uses no X-rays at all. It listens to hydrogen nuclei in your body responding to a magnetic field. Here is how that produces a detailed image of soft tissue, and why the machine is so loud.
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Physics
How a laser actually works
A laser is not simply a very bright lamp. It produces light in which every wave marches in step, and that single property is what lets it cut steel, carry the internet and measure the distance to the Moon.
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