Richard Brill is a retired professor of science at Honolulu Community College. His column runs on the first and third Fridays of the month.
Zero, nothing, zilch, nada? The number zero is a misunderstood enigma. Its place in our number system is relatively recent, appearing much later than the Arabic numerals we use to display number digits. Read more
Behold the ubiquitous gecko climbing a vertical wall in the blink of an eye or scurrying across the ceiling in gravity- defying dashes. Read more
Glass is one of our most common and often overlooked technologies because it is so common, but that has not always been the case. Glassmaking technology has a history longer than history itself. Read more
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Where is ET? After nearly 50 years of searching for intelligent signals from space, astronomers have yet to receive a single verifiable signal of intelligent origin. Read more
The rare earths are a relatively abundant group of 17 elements that are so chemically similar that 15 of them occupy a single row and column in the periodic table. Read more
We are immersed in a dense sea of electromagnetism, or EM. Read more
Got to have that morning rush, whether it is from coffee, tea, chocolate, soft drinks, energy drinks or some other form of caffeine? Read more
What is the universe made of? This is one of the burning questions confronting today’s astrophysicists and cosmologists. Read more
The polar vortex is a permanent low- pressure system that surrounds the geographical north and south poles. “Vortex” refers to the circulation around the poles. The term also describes smaller vortices that occur within lobes of the primary vortex. Read more
Most people have now heard of the atmospheric river called the “Pineapple Express” and the heavy rain and snowfall it caused in California. Read more
Science has recently revealed new insights into the human body. A vast information network like the internet exists inside. Formerly, scientists thought the brain ruled all body systems and that the other organs merely obeyed its commands. Read more
Thermonuclear reactions deep in the sun’s interior consistently generate the same amount of energy as 2.5 billion 500-megawatt generators, the largest on Earth. Read more
There are tens of trillions of stars in our Milky Way galaxy and billions of galaxies in deep space, each with trillions of stars. Taken in total, there are likely more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all beaches on Earth. Read more
The solid Earth is surrounded by a fluid envelope of atmosphere and ocean, a coupled system of direct interaction. Read more
The transfer of heat from the equator to the poles is the cause of weather. It might manifest as gentle rain, wind, thunderstorms, hurricanes or tornadoes. Read more
Crystals are everywhere. With few exceptions, the solid inorganic substances that make up our world are crystalline. This includes rocks, minerals, ceramics and metals. Read more
It is an interesting aspect of the universe and an ironic sense of unity that it requires more energy to see smaller objects. This is the result of the properties of waves in general and specifically the nature of electromagnetic waves. Read more
We’ve all heard of virtual reality, but virtual water is the current buzz phrase among water conservationists. Read more
Spin is in. Stars spin around supermassive black holes. Planets spin in orbit around the sun. Earth spins daily on its axis, a toy top spins on a desktop, atoms spin, quarks spin, electrons spin and even nonmaterial photons spin. Read more
Charging a cellphone on an induction pad seems like magic, and in a way it is. Induction is a feature of electromagnetism that Michael Faraday stated in 1831, now known as Faraday’s law. It is the basis for much of modern electrical and electronic technology. Read more
From the earliest days of sports announcing, on muggy nights baseball announcers have remarked about how baseballs do not travel as far due to the heavy, humid air. Read more
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