Technology
Discover facts about technology. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Technology
Your guitar amp’s reverb may come from metal springs
That iconic, wet surf-rock echo is quite literally just the sound of springs violently shaking in a metal box. Amplifiers send the audio signal into a…
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Early VHS let a movie outlast Betamax's tape limit
Sony's original consumer Betamax format recorded about an hour, while early VHS offered longer recording time. Picture quality was only one part of the buying…
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How strobe lights make motion look frozen
Rapid flashes illuminate only brief slices of motion. At the right frequency, they can make a spinning fan or dancer appear frozen.
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Some sitar strings vibrate without being touched
Sitar players pluck the main strings, while a hidden row of sympathetic strings vibrates in response to matching notes. Those unplucked strings help create…
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What's hidden inside an instant photo's white border
The white border conceals pods of developer fluid; rollers crush them and spread the liquid across the image as it emerges.
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LaserDisc read movies with a laser—but the picture was analog
The disc stored the video signal as a continuously varying recording read optically, unlike a DVD’s digitally encoded picture. Some editions paired that…
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Rotoscoping requires tracing live footage frame by frame
Artists filmed actors, projected the footage onto frosted glass, and traced their outlines frame by frame, producing the unusually fluid movement seen in…
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Google once claimed pigeons powered its search engine
Google’s 2002 April Fools’ joke invented “PigeonRank,” claiming pigeons in data centers ranked webpages by pecking at seeds.
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Match.com’s founder lost his girlfriend to Match.com
Gary Kremen encouraged his girlfriend to try the dating service he had helped create. She met someone else through it and left him. As a business…
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Some toasters used two metals to decide when toast was ready
A bimetallic strip bends as it heats because its bonded metals expand by different amounts. In mechanical toaster designs, that movement can control a…
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Siphons drag water up hills using atmospheric pressure
With a water-filled tube and its outlet lower than the source, gravity pulls water down the outlet while atmospheric pressure pushes more water up the other…
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Your car turns pothole-induced bouncing into heat
A damper pushes oil through tiny openings, turning the suspension's bouncing motion into heat. The springs absorb bumps, while the damper keeps them from…
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Traffic cones survive being crushed due to flexible plastic
A flexible PVC cone can buckle under a tire and spring back instead of shattering. Its weighted rubber base helps it stay upright.
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Vintage carburetors mix fuel and air via fluid dynamics
Air speeds through a narrow venturi, lowering the pressure and drawing gasoline from a small bowl into the engine's airstream.
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Why tempered glass breaks into safer pebbles
Rapidly cooling the outer surfaces while the core stays hot locks stress into the pane. When it breaks, that stress makes it crumble into small, relatively…
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Pneumatic tubes launch physical items via air vacuums
A vacuum fan lowers the pressure at the receiving end, and higher air pressure behind the capsule pushes it through the sealed tube.
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Steamrollers flatten roads using absurd mass and vibration
As it moves between mosquito guts and mammalian livers, the parasite cycles through distinct forms and changes its protein coat, helping it evade antibodies…
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Automatic watches wind their own springs using your wrist
A freely rotating semicircular weight swings as you move, turning gears that wind the watch's mainspring.
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How a kite stays in the air
Tension on the line holds the kite at an angle to the breeze. Wind deflects off its surface, pushing the lightweight kite upward.
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Manual transmissions trade raw speed for maximum torque
Low gears multiply engine torque to get a vehicle moving; higher gears trade some pulling force for speed as it accelerates.
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Old parking meters tracked time using wound metal springs
In old mechanical meters, inserting a coin let you wind a mainspring. As it unwound, gears advanced a red flag to show that the paid time had run out.
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How a tiny pump can lift a bulldozer
Because oil barely compresses, pressure from a small piston transfers through the fluid to a wider piston, multiplying force enough to lift a bulldozer…
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Fountain pens pull ink to paper via subtle capillary action
A narrow slit in the metal nib draws ink toward its tip through capillary action. The paper then pulls the ink from the nib as it touches the page.
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Desktop 3D printers slowly drool melted plastic into shapes
A desktop 3D printer works like a precise hot-glue gun: it pushes filament through a heated nozzle and builds an object by stacking thin layers of melted…
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