Here’s a mind-blowing experiment that you can try at home: Gather some children’s blocks and place them on a table. Take one block and slowly push it over the table’s edge, inch by inch, until it’s on ...

Keep going. If you stack as many blocks as you can, what is the farthest overhang you can achieve before the entire structure topples? Is it possible for the tower to extend a full block length beyond ...

Determining the least expensive path for a new subway line underneath a metropolis like New York City is a colossal planning challenge—involving thousands of potential routes through hundreds of city ...