Static electricity often just seems like an everyday annoyance when a wool sweater crackles as you pull it off, or when a doorknob delivers an unexpected zap. Regardless, the phenomenon is much more ...

Door handles, taps, playground slides, furry pets… Getting zapped by static electricity is a common experience. But the physics that causes the spark is surprisingly intricate. If you're getting ...

As humans we often think we have a pretty good handle on the basics of the way the world works, from an intuition about gravity good enough to let us walk around, play baseball, and land spacecraft on ...