The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Imagine, for a moment, that you’re a honeybee. In many ways, your world is small. Your four delicate wings, each less than a centimeter ...

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 ...

Although the basic concept of electrostatic attraction has been known since ancient times, it was only in the 17th century that scientists began to systematically investigate electrostatics. One of ...

Galien Grosjean was a caretaker of tiny glass beads. He bathed them, gently cradled them with tweezers, placed them delicately in his experimental apparatus. He avoided unneeded jostling at all costs: ...

A spider standing on a plant, raising its abdomen and releasing several strands of silk may look like it is simply being carried away by the wind. But the physics of this strange behavior, known as ...