Physics

Is geo-engineering the climate an answer to global warming? Cold War science has some lessons. 

When oil shortages disrupted daily life in the 1970s, Americans were forced to rethink consumption, and the crisis set in motion decisions that continue to shape energy policy today. 

When a major blackout hit the U.S. and Canada in 2003, more than 50 million people lost power. Today, questions remain about the vulnerability of the power grid.  

Catastrophic accidents at power plants like Three Mile Island and Fukushima Daiichi have heightened fears about the safety of nuclear energy, but environmentalists and others are giving it renewed attention as a way to fight global warming. 

Guatemalan homesteaders and a Michigan contractor are riding a wave that could change how our lives are wired. 

We’ve teamed with PBS’ American Experience to take a look back at Freeman Dyson, who explored whether interplanetary space travel could be made possible by harnessing the power of a nuclear bomb. 

Normalization of deviance, the process of becoming inured to risky actions, is a useful concept that was developed to explain how the Challenger disaster happened. 

Our moon has winked from the heavens as a symbol and anchor, reminding us not only the cycle of life, but also of danger and death. Scientists have brought the moon into sharper focus, and astronauts have left the first footprints there. But will we ever be able to explain its lasting, mesmerizing power of attraction? 

NASA isn’t the first organization to experiment with living on Mars – in 1991 eight people sealed themselves inside a giant glass biosphere to practice space living. By the time they emerged two years later, they had “suffocated, starved and went mad.” 

More than 40 years ago, Pierre Sprey set out to build the ultimate fighter jet. 

Humans are wary that robots could replace them. So what can we learn from the legendary chess match between a supercomputer and Garry Kasparov? 

Autonomous vehicle technology has gotten better, but how close are we really to a time when a robot chauffeur will be able to safely drive us? 

The robotics team from M.I.T recovers from disaster at the robot Olympics. 

For decades the United States has been on a quest to perfect stealth technology, but development of the F-35 fighter jet shows just how complicated dreams can become. 

News media coverage in the 1980s and early 1990s fueled fears of a national cancer epidemic caused by power lines and generated a debate that still lingers today. 

How did cars become “computers on wheels,” so automated that some are about to start driving themselves? The story begins forty-five years ago with a quest to make cars safer and the battle over the air bag.