Flying on Sunlight

In the winter of 2013, I went on a not-very-successful reporting trip to Switzerland. I was writing about a solar airplane, the Solar Impulse, and got way less access to the project than I had expected. But there was one highlight. After my odd tour of the hangar where the plane was being built, outside […]

The Poet Bernoulli

I asked my husband, who’s a physicist and a pilot, how airplanes stay up in the air.  A question like that makes him happy.  “It’s the wings,” he said,  “They provide lift.”  “What’s lift?” I said.  “It’s Bernoulli,” he said. “The faster air moves, the lower its pressure. ”  I’m used to these answers that are […]