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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Why random dice rolls draw a perfect fractal: the chaos game and the Sierpiński triangle
Pick three dots, then keep jumping halfway towards a randomly chosen one. It sounds like it should leave a grey smudge…
Why the Moon changes shape: always half lit, and only part of it faces you
Ask why the Moon changes shape and most people blame the Earth's shadow. It is a natural guess, and it is wrong: the…
Why a sentence can nest forever on paper but not in your head: centre-embedding
The rat the cat the dog chased killed ate the malt. It is perfectly grammatical, and almost nobody can read it. English…
Why you hear a note that isn't there: the missing fundamental
Play only 220, 330 and 440 hertz and most people hear a note at 110 hertz — a frequency that is not in the sound at…
Why one flipped bit can be found and fixed: Hamming's error-correcting code
A single flipped bit can turn a good file into garbage, yet a machine can find and repair it without ever seeing the…
Why you stumble naming the ink of a clashing colour word: the Stroop effect
Name the ink colour of the word GREEN printed in red and you stumble, even though the rule is trivial. In 1935 John…
Categories
01
BiologyCells, bodies, evolution and everything that grows.
11 breaks
02
ComputingThe ideas inside the machines we use all day.
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03
Earth & SpacePlanets, weather, oceans and the sky above them.
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04
EconomicsPrices, incentives and why markets do what they do.
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05
EngineeringHow things are built, and why they don't fall down.
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06
Food ScienceThe chemistry happening in your kitchen.
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07
HistoryThe decisions, accidents and people that shaped now.
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08
LanguageWords, grammar and how people make meaning.
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MathsPatterns, chance and the numbers hiding in everyday things.
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MindPsychology, perception and the quirks of the brain.
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Music & SoundVibrations, harmony and why some sounds feel right.
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PhysicsForces, light, time and the odd behaviour of the very small.
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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.