How does it work?
Step-by-step visual explainers for the things people most want to understand — each paired with a 2-minute animated lesson.
Gravity works because every object with mass attracts every other object. Einstein's deeper explanation: mass curves the fabric of spacetime, and other objects follow that curve — which we feel as the pull of gravity.
The internet works by breaking your data into small packets, routing them across a global network of interconnected computers, and reassembling them at the destination. Shared protocols (mainly TCP/IP) let any device talk to any other.
Photosynthesis works in two stages: light-dependent reactions capture sunlight in the chloroplasts to make energy carriers, then the Calvin cycle uses that energy to turn carbon dioxide and water into glucose, releasing oxygen.
Large language models work by predicting the next word in a sequence. Trained on vast text using the transformer architecture, they learn statistical patterns of language, then generate responses one token at a time.
The stock market works by matching buyers and sellers of company shares on exchanges. Prices move continuously based on supply and demand, which reflect investors' changing expectations about each company's future.
Vaccines work by safely teaching your immune system to recognize a specific germ in advance. They expose the body to a harmless piece or weakened form of the pathogen, so it can build defenses and respond fast if the real one ever appears.
Blockchain works by storing data in blocks that are cryptographically linked in a chain across many computers. Each block carries a fingerprint (hash) of the previous one, so altering any block would break the chain — making the record tamper-evident.
Wi-Fi works by sending data over radio waves between your device and a wireless router that's connected to the internet. The router and device take turns transmitting tiny encoded radio signals that carry your data.
The water cycle works as a continuous loop powered by the Sun and gravity: water evaporates from oceans and land, rises and condenses into clouds, falls as precipitation, and flows back to the sea to start again.
Compound interest works by paying interest on both your original money and the interest it has already earned. Each period the balance grows a little more, and that larger balance earns even more next time — accelerating growth.
A petrol car engine works by burning fuel inside cylinders in tiny, rapid explosions. Each explosion pushes a piston, and those pistons turn a crankshaft that ultimately spins the wheels — repeating the four-stroke cycle thousands of times a minute.
Electricity works through the flow of electric charge — usually electrons moving through a conductor like a wire. A voltage 'pushes' the charge, current is the rate of flow, and that moving charge delivers energy to power devices.
The immune system works in two coordinated layers: a fast, general innate response attacks anything foreign immediately, while a slower adaptive response builds antibodies tailored to a specific pathogen — and remembers it for next time.
Search engines work in three steps: crawling the web with bots to discover pages, indexing their content in a giant database, and ranking results by relevance and quality when you search — returning answers in milliseconds.