Using wind tunnels, the brothers corrected a centuries-old error used to measure lift

Their 1901 Wind Tunnel system revolutionized the study of aeronautics

Only the second to be built in the US, the wind tunnel allowed the brothers to study how air moves around more than 200 different wing shapes. This data helped them refine a key math equation, long held as the standard, that had been based only on one wing shape.

The Wrights innovated controlled flight along three axes—pitch, roll, and yaw

Gliders studied by the Wrights were unwieldy and unable to be fully controlled by the pilot. Wilbur and Orville invented so-called wing-warping which twisted their surface and allowed for the plane to roll (or turn), all using a device manipulated by the hips.

The pair began their aviation research by studying the 'mechanics' of birds

Taking inspiration from gliding pioneer Otto Lilienthal—whose gliders resembled the wings of birds—Wilbur took to observing birds to understand how they do it, in order to solve the problem of flight. This opening episode on the brothers explores their lives and accomplishments.

Watch an amateur fly a 1902 Wright glider at the Kitty Hawk dunes

Billy Vaughan recreates the test flights of the Wright gliders in the exact location the brothers conducted them. He argues an October 1902 glider flight—not the December 1903 one—was the key innovative moment, implementing three-axis control. Host Baratunde rides a glider in perfect windy conditions in this re-creation.

The public mostly doubted the Wrights’ flight claims for five years

Coverage of the pair’s success often described them as barely educated bike mechanics. They struggled to gain traction with the public. It took interest from French business leaders and the US Signal Corps to bring the pair into separate demonstrations of their planes.

The 1910 Wright Model B was the brother’s most successful aircraft

The model, built from 1910 to 1914, was the first designed to be constructed in bulk, with four built each month in 1911 and 1912. The two-seater was used in exhibition flights and training for some of the earliest uses of airplanes in military contexts.

The Wright brothers' sister hyped their work, and was the only one to attend college

Katharine Wright became the de facto household caretaker after their mother, Susan, died, when Katharine was 15. After graduating from Oberlin, Katharine took over household duties so her father and brothers could work. She promoted their work in the US and abroad.

Wind turbines are limited to capturing no more than 59.3% of incoming wind energy

In 1919, German physicist Albert Betz applied the laws of conservation of mass and momentum to airstreams to calculate the theoretical limit. However, real-world turbines only convert 35 to 45% of available wind energy into electricity.

Differences in air pressure above and below an airplane's wing allow it to fly

The bending of air around a surface causes it to flow more quickly, reducing the pressure exerted by the airflow. In a commercial airplane, the pressure difference between air diverted above the wing and air flowing undiverted below it creates enough lift to overcome gravity.

The invention of the barometer proved that air has weight

The instrument measures air pressure by creating a partial vacuum—a region with very low density—which serves as the basis for how suction works. Mercury-based barometers were used until 2007, when they were restricted due to mercury's toxicity.

The Navier-Stokes equations are fundamentally accurate but unsolved in 3D

The equations model fluids and have been shown to have solutions for all systems in two dimensions. Averaging and approximations let the equations be used in climate models, aerodynamics, and medicine, though their use in some systems produces nonsensical answers.

How birds are becoming research assistants

Through the creation of tiny sensors easily placed on their bodies, birds have served as research assistants for various scientists. With untold numbers of birds sending back data, researchers have achieved greater insights in long obscure areas of meteorology, ecology, and more. For example, weather scientists use high-flying birds to outline the height of the planetary boundary layer, while conservationists track gulls to protect migrating whales. Learn more here.

For the same cost, turbines with three blades are the most resilient

Odd-numbered blade values more evenly distribute wind loads across the face of rotors, reducing bending and twisting forces on the turbine that cause wear. Modeling shows that three blades optimize efficiency and cost for everyday wind speeds.

Bill Bowerman’s daughter-in-law found the waffle iron he used to create a breakthrough shoe

Nike cofounder and University of Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman poured polyurethane into a waffle iron for his first attempt at creating the revolutionary waffle-knit sole. The waffle iron, which was found in his backyard, now sits in Nike’s headquarters.

Validation of the greenhouse effect may have been misattributed

Although Irish physicist John Tyndall showed in 1859 that water vapor and carbon dioxide could absorb and radiate infrared radiation, experiments by American scientist Eunice Foote three years earlier identified the same phenomenon for light in general. Historically overshadowed, her work was rediscovered by female historians over a century later.

See technicians use rappelling gear to make wind turbine repairs from 35+ stories up

Although drones are used to conduct initial reviews from the ground, mechanical engineers trained in turbine maintenance face extreme risks during close inspections more than 150 meters off the ground.

Wind helps trees develop resistance to collapse

Scientists at Biosphere 2 found that trees grew faster in the facility than those in the wild but collapsed more quickly when replanted outdoors. Researchers uncovered that trees build resistance when pushed and pulled due to wind stress, strengthening their foundational root systems.

Uncertainties in measurements make finding gravity's Newtonian limit unclear

Although Newton's "universal" law is unreliable in strong gravitational fields when compared with the field equations of general relativity, it is still taught for its accuracy on everyday scales. However, gravity's effect on small scales is too weak to be measured reliably, its accuracy at atomic scales remains unknown.

Mosquitoes stop flying at wind speeds equivalent to the swishing of a horse's tail

This low-threshold for wind—halting flight at 2 to 3 miles per hour—underscores that the bugs are actually not particularly strong flyers. But they don't need to be particularly robust fliers since their tiny, dark bodies and erratic movements can make them challenging to spot.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation

Ewen snagged the win for "most balloons blown up in one hour by an individual" in 2011 with 582 balloons, and then reclaimed the title in 2017 with 910 balloons inflated in just 60 minutes.

The twenty-year effort to design the Webb's optics

Since its located 1 million miles from Earth, the Webb space observatory has to be able to repair itself—no Space Shuttles can be dispatched with astronaut engineers to repair it. That's why over two decades teams reiterated, cross-checked, and hyper-optimized the Webb's observing surface. Their efforts produced the world's largest space-based optical surface that is peering billions of years back in time. Learn the wild engineering of the telescope here.

Da Vinci’s ingenious self-supporting bridge

Without using glue or nails, the brilliant polymath Leonardo Da Vinci was able to construct a sturdy bridge of wood logs. This video unpacks the genius civil engineering behind this concept and offers a visual demonstration of how it worked. See how Da Vinci accomplished this feat without using permanent parts, and how his bridge got even stronger as weight and force was added.

Scientific advances have transformed understanding of Stonehenge’s builders

Techniques such as radiocarbon dating, DNA analysis, and isotopic testing have revised scholars' understanding of Stonehenge. This article presents evidence suggesting that societies were more cooperative and less violent than earlier theories had suggested.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

Earth's circumference was estimated over 2,000 years ago using geometry and shadows

By measuring the angle of the shadow cast in Syene when no shadow was cast in Alexandria, Eratosthenes used the distance between the two cities and trigonometry to estimate the Earth's circumference to within a few percentage points of the actual value.

Henry Chadwick invented the box score in 1859—and wrote off walks as a pitcher's failure

The English migrant adapted cricket statistics for baseball, publishing the first box score in the game's early days. Baked into that was a dismissal of the walk as reflecting a batter's skill, instead implying it was a pitcher's mistake. That assumption kept walks out of the box score for more than a century, concealing the skill involved in drawing walks.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

The boiling temperature of water decreases with increasing elevation because the molecules need less energy to overcome the lower atmospheric pressure associated with thinner air.

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

Trace how the Bill of Rights, inspired by centuries of political theory, took shape between 1774 and 1789.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time