How it works

Each stage of the animation on the home page shows a real idea from science, math, or computing. These pages explain each one in plain words first. If you want more, there is a "Go deeper" section at the bottom of each page with the proper names and the math.

1. One becomes two Why doubling starts slowly and then gets very big very fast.
2. Dots bumping around How random movement spreads things out, with no one steering.
3. Hot side, cold side What heat really is, and why it only flows one way on its own.
4. Settling into a honeycomb Why slow cooling makes neat patterns, and why six neighbors is the magic number.
5. The sunflower turn The odd turning angle that lets plants pack seeds with no gaps.
6. Lines around a magnet What the invisible area around a magnet looks like.
7. Rolling downhill How a marble finds the bottom of a hill, and how computers learn the same way.
8. Tiles that never repeat A pattern with a kind of symmetry that wallpaper cannot have.
9. Fitting circles together The best way to fit round things in a flat space, and why you get seams.
10. Sorting by splitting How to put a huge pile of things in order, by splitting it up first.
11. Clocks falling into step How a crowd of different clocks can end up beating together, with no leader.
12. The simplest wave The building block that every sound and signal is made from.
13. Three waves that cancel The trick behind the power lines you see on tall towers.
14. Waves move, water stays Why a wave can cross an ocean without carrying any water with it.
15. Spots and stripes from two chemicals How a smooth mixture can make its own pattern.
16. From steady to chaotic A very simple rule that goes from calm, to flip-flopping, to unpredictable.
17. The butterfly equations Why even a perfect rule can make the future impossible to predict.
18. A flock with no leader How thousands of birds move as one, with every bird following three simple rules.
19. When a hawk shows up How a flock dodges a hawk, even though most birds never see it.
20. Two strands wound together The shape of the molecule that holds the instructions for living things.