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Why guitar frets get closer together as you go up the neck
Guitar frets crowd together toward the body because of one fact about hearing: we hear pitch by ratio, not by difference. Each fret has to raise the note by…
Why turning a wobbly table can stop it rocking: the quarter-turn proof
Your café table rocks. Before you wedge a folded napkin under a leg, try turning the whole table on the spot. On most floors, somewhere within a quarter-turn…
Why seven shuffles are enough to mix a deck of cards
A 52-card deck can be put in about 8 × 10^67 different orders, yet a few quick shuffles leave a lot of the old order behind. In 1992 Dave Bayer and Persi…