PBS

Our image of dinosaurs has been constantly changing since naturalists started studying them about 350 years ago. Taken together, these pictures can tell us a whole lot about just how much we have learned. Let's explore the history of dinosaur science as seen through the history of dinosaur art.

By looking at the layers beneath our feet, geologists have been able to identify and describe crucial episodes in life’s history. These key events frame the chapters in the story of life on earth and the system we use to bind all these chapters together is the Geologic Time Scale.

What happened when a gambler asked for help from a mathematician? The formal study of Probability.

The answer lies in the weirdness of floating-point numbers and the computer's perception of a number line.

Why is there a hexagonal structure in honeycombs? Why not squares? Or asymmetrical blobby shapes? In 36 B.C., the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro wrote about two of the leading theories of the day. First: bees have six legs, so they must obviously prefer six-sided shapes. But that charming piece of numerology did not fool the geometers of day. They provided a second theory: Hexagons are the m

What happens if you multiply things that aren’t numbers? And what happens if that multiplication is not associative?

What happens when you multiply shapes?

Here we break down Asymmetric crypto and more.

What exactly is a topological space?

Symmetric keys are essential to encrypting messages. How can two people share the same key without someone else getting a hold of it? Upfront asymmetric encryption is one way, but another is Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

There is a proof for Brouwer's Fixed Point Theorem that uses a bridge - or portal - between geometry and algebra.

You know the Golden Ratio, but what is the Silver Ratio?

What happens when you divide things that aren’t numbers?

What shape do you most associate with a standard analog clock? Your reflex answer might be a circle, but a more natural answer is actually a torus. Surprised? Then stick around.

If you needed to tell someone what numbers are and how they work, without using the notion of number in your answer, could you do it?

In the physical world, many seemingly basic things turn out to be built from even more basic things. Molecules are made of atoms, atoms are made of protons, neutrons, and electrons. So what are numbers made of?

If Fermat had a little more room in his margin, what proof would he have written there?

In the card game SET, what is the maximum number of cards you can deal that might not contain a SET?

To repeat the space time maxim: it’s never aliens … until it is. So let’s talk about ‘oumuamua.

How did life on Earth get started? Did life on Earth originate on another planet? Either Mars, or in a distant solar system? Could Earth life have spread to have seeded life elsewhere? Let’s see what modern science has to say about the plausibility of panspermia.

Well, sure the answer is partly from 1980s horror movies like IT and Killer Klowns from Outer Space, but the reality is much deeper than that. From the Middle Ages through the Renaissance to 19th Century England, clowns have always been around to bring a little chaos. And the truth is, up until the late 1800s they were NEVER for kids. The truth is, terrifying killer clowns are nothing new.

If there's one debate you can't avoid today it's what do about the US health insurance. While many countries around the world have some form of nationalized, government run healthcare most people in the US have their healthcare provided by their employer. Why is that the case?

While you might not personally consider your average 18 year old a full-fledged adult, 18 is a pretty magic number in the US. It’s the the age when you can vote, go to war, work full time, and move out of their parents house. Why is this the case? Well while you might think there’s some sort of biological or traditional explanation, that’s not the case.

It’s gone by many names, (the pound sign, the number sign, the octothorpe and the hashtag symbol) and it’s had many meanings, but what is the origin of this # mysterious symbol? Well the truth is it goes back all the way to ancient Rome. But what’s even stranger is that the hashtag symbol can help us understand the always changing nature of the abstraction that is language itself.

While evidence of people who eat other people existed long before Columbus, the idea of tribes of “savages” in the jungle who hunt other people for food was truly birthed with Columbus. He is even the first person to ever use the word “Cannibal” to describe such people. The problem is, no such people really existed in the Caribbean islands where Columbus landed.