The FREE online science and technology book
Want to know how your earbuds make music, how telephones squeeze sounds down wires, why broadband is faster than dialup, or how science can make you happy? You've come to the right place!
Hard stuff... made simple!
Explain that Stuff is a collection of over 400 completely free,
easy-to-understand articles (and about 2000 photos and artworks), covering how
things work, cutting-edge science, cool gadgets, and computers.
Our mission is to explain things simply and clearly so you understand them completely.
There's more information on this website than in your average expensive science book—and it's all completely free to use!
(Our photos and artworks are also free for you to reuse in school reports, science fair projects,
and for other noncommercial uses under a
Creative Commons license.)
Most read
These are our top-ten most-read articles:
- Water pollution: Rivers and seas take a long time to recover from the effects of careless human treatment. What causes pollution and what can we do to stop it?
- Electricity: The most versatile and useful form of energy in our world, electricity is going to become a whole lot more important in future.
- Air pollution: It's often invisible, but air pollution can be just as damaging as water pollution and sometimes travels much further. Doing a school or college project on pollution? Here's a comprehensive list of resources to help you get started.
- Power plants: We wouldn't be able to do much without power plants buzzing away in the background making our electricity, but we've only had these remarkable energy factories for just over 100 years!
- Solar cells: Imagine being able to make electricity for free from nothing but sunlight! That's the promise of solar electricity, likely to be one of the most important forms of energy in the coming decades.
- Wireless Internet: Who can still remember the time when everyone had to connect to the Net very slowly through a piece of copper wire? How exactly does Wi-Fi work?
- Global warming: Why is the world getting hotter and what can we do about it? What will be the consequences for humankind and the rest of the living world?
- Magnetism: One of the first bits of science people studied, magnetism is still just as relevant today in everything from electric cars to body scans at the hospital.
- Electric motors: These amazing machines turn electricity and magnetism into movement, powering everything from handheld toothbrushes to bikes, cars, and trains.
- Hydraulics: What do water pistols have to do with cranes and diggers? They use hydraulics to give you more force at your fingertips.
More popular articles...
