physics

12 articles · All tags

• How Solar Cells Work
  The photovoltaic effect: how a silicon junction turns photons into current, why panel efficiency sits near 20%, and what actually limits it.
• Fiber Optics and Total Internal Reflection
  How light is trapped inside hair-thin glass strands by total internal reflection — the physics that carries the internet as pulses of light.
• How Loudspeakers Work
  From amplifier current to sound pressure: the moving-coil driver, why cabinets matter, crossovers, and the physics that limits every speaker no matter its price.
• How Microwave Ovens Heat Food
  A microwave oven heats by rotating polar molecules in an alternating electric field — why water heats, why ice is slow, why plates stay cool, and what the metal warnings mean.
• Quantum Computing
  What a quantum computer actually is — qubits, superposition, entanglement, and interference — and which problems it will and will not revolutionize.
• How GPS Works
  How a receiver on Earth calculates position from satellite signals — trilateration, atomic clocks, and the relativistic corrections that keep the system honest.
• The Gyroscope
  Why a spinning wheel resists being turned — angular momentum, precession, and the sensors that guide everything from bicycles to spacecraft.
• Electromagnetic Spectrum
  The continuous range of electromagnetic radiation from radio waves to gamma rays, classified by frequency and wavelength.
• Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
  The quantum mechanical limit on the simultaneous precision of position and momentum measurements: Δx·Δp ≥ ħ/2.
• Newton's Laws of Motion
  The three laws of classical mechanics — inertia, F = ma, and action–reaction — that form the basis of classical physics.
• Wave–Particle Duality
  The quantum-mechanical fact that entities such as light and electrons exhibit both wave-like and particle-like behavior depending on the experiment.
• Maxwell's Equations
  The four equations that unify electricity and magnetism and predict electromagnetic waves traveling at the speed of light.