Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about physics, science, academia, and pop culture. This helps, sort of, but as more numbers get thrown around, it can get ...

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 11, 2016 -- By carefully observing scenes as simple as leaves falling from trees or dandelion seeds blowing in the wind, we can see diverse "falling styles" that include ...

Falling objects injured three different people in three separate incidents I recently investigated. The common thread: unsecured objects above the victims’ heads. As in any falling-object case, most ...

Let’s consider GW150914, the first binary black hole merger detected via gravitational waves. The final black hole formed during the merger is 60 times the mass of the Sun, which means that its size ...

I often look at cases where things are falling. We typically call this "free fall" motion because the object is moving only under the influence of the gravitational force. With only the gravitational ...

Our motion perception is remarkably well tuned to detect small changes in speed and direction. For example, soccer goalkeepers need to precisely judge the speed, direction, and curvature of an ...

It's a legendary experiment: Young Galileo, perched atop the Leaning Tower of Pisa, drops cannonballs of different weights to see if all objects fall at the same rate. It's a story that's easy to ...