Biology / Computing / Earth & Space / Economics / Engineering / Food Science / History / Language / Maths / Mind / Music & Sound / Physics

Step away.
Come back smarter.

Short, interactive explainers for your break from work. Read one in thirty seconds, dive deeper if you like, then get back to it.

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Earth & Space3 min read Why planets speed up near the Sun: Kepler's equal-areas law Earth moves at 30.29 km/s near 3 January and 29.29 km/s near 4 July, with nothing pushing it along. The rule behind the… Language4 min read Why 'The old man the boat' stops you cold: garden-path sentences and a brain that guesses Read "The old man the boat." and your brain probably crashes at the fifth word. It guessed "the old man" was one person… Music & Sound4 min read Why two almost-equal notes make a wobble: beats and the piano tuner's trick Play two almost-equal notes together and you hear one pitch that swells and fades. Those swells are beats, and their… Computing4 min read Why swapping cards at random is not a fair shuffle: Fisher–Yates and the 27 paths Shuffling three cards by swapping each one with a random card from the whole row looks fair, but it is not. It makes 3… Mind4 min read Why a dot vanishes when you look away from it: the blind spot where the optic nerve exits Close one eye, stare at a cross, and a dot a hand's width away simply vanishes. That is your blind spot: the place… Engineering4 min read Why Taipei 101 hangs a 660-tonne ball in its upper floors: the tuned mass damper At the top of Taipei 101 a 660-tonne steel ball hangs in plain view. It is not decoration: it is a tuned mass damper…

Categories

01 BiologyCells, bodies, evolution and everything that grows. 10 breaks 02 ComputingThe ideas inside the machines we use all day. 9 breaks 03 Earth & SpacePlanets, weather, oceans and the sky above them. 10 breaks 04 EconomicsPrices, incentives and why markets do what they do. 9 breaks 05 EngineeringHow things are built, and why they don't fall down. 9 breaks 06 Food ScienceThe chemistry happening in your kitchen. 10 breaks 07 HistoryThe decisions, accidents and people that shaped now. 10 breaks 08 LanguageWords, grammar and how people make meaning. 10 breaks 09 MathsPatterns, chance and the numbers hiding in everyday things. 8 breaks 10 MindPsychology, perception and the quirks of the brain. 9 breaks 11 Music & SoundVibrations, harmony and why some sounds feel right. 10 breaks 12 PhysicsForces, light, time and the odd behaviour of the very small. 10 breaks

How it works

30 Second Break is a collection of short explainers for curious people of every age. Each break is one idea you can read in thirty seconds, with an optional deep dive that has its own interactive design.

01
Pick a topic
Browse by category, or hit Random.
02
Read for 30 seconds
Go deeper if you have a few more minutes.
03
Back to work
One thing smarter than before.