Writers’ Gallery
A Mind Can Be Open Without Being Empty: Thoughts on the Skepticism of Scientists
Is the scientific community really closed to ideas from the lonely genius? Do the historical stories of Galileo and Wegener really show that we are willing to listen only to our own?
ATOM: An Odyssey from the Big Bang to Life on Earth...and Beyond
It is difficult today to fully appreciate how recent is the notion that atoms are real physical entities, and not mere mathematical or philosophical constructs.
Celebrating the Poetry of Imagination Without Boundaries
There is poetry in physics discoveries that is worth celebrating, even if one is not a cosmologist.
Einstein's Legacy
Would the world now be different if Albert Einstein had never lived? Could we ask the same question with regard to Claude Monet or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?
Einstein's Relativity and Everyday Life
What good is fundamental physics to the person on the street? This is the perennial question posed to physicists by their non-science friends, by students in the humanities and social sciences, and by politicians looking to justify spending tax dollars on basic science.
Hidden Symmetry
Most of us who are unfortunate enough to remember what life was like when we were thirteen years old will recall that one of the predominant influences that shaped our lives at that age was the unrelenting coercion of peer pressure.
How the Universe Got Its Spots
The story of Dr. Levin's research in the form of letters to her mother. They contain an intriguing blend of science and personal anecdote.
In Search of Beauty
My colleagues and I in fundamental physics are the intellectual descendants of Albert Einstein; we like to think that we too search for beauty.
Into the Future
If we are fortunate and wise enough to go on as a species for many millennia, I am tempted to think the twentieth century will be remembered as something special in science, the century in which many of the mysteries of Earth, life, and the cosmos were understood for the first time.
Odds Are Stacked When Science Tries to Debate Pseudoscience
I agreed to participate in a debate for a Florida radio program that specialized in alien visits and U.F.O. sightings. . . I should have known better.
Spaceship Neutrino
Solar neutrinos stream through us constantly, raining down on us by day and up through the Earth by night.
The Beginning…
This story is about the universe, and unfortunately there are no data for the Very Beginning. None, zero.
The Citizen-Scientist's Obligation to Stand Up for Standards
Empirical constraints that may otherwise guide sensible policy making seem to be evaporating.
The Cosmic Zoom
Most of the scientists and inventors we met started out believing that they had made a great discovery overlooked by everyone else. It never pays to underestimate the human capacity for self-deception.
Beauty of Trajectory
"Ignoring air resistance, cannon balls move along parabolas," we learn in school. But the truth is more intriguing.
Chess and the Laws of Physics
Discovering the laws of physics is like trying to learn the laws of chess merely by observing chess games.
Cosmic Evolution
Simply defined, cosmic evolution is the study of change--the vast number of developmental and generative changes that have accumulated during all time and across all space, from big bang to humankind.
The Map is Not the Territory*
My uncle Karl had no sense of direction. Armed with an elaborate set of instructions and a street map of downtown Montreal, he would gamely set off on an errand, and we children would gleefully brace ourselves for the next development.
A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down
A few years ago I had occasion to engage my father-in-law, a retired academician, on the subject of the collective nature of physical law.
String Training
String theory’s view of the fundamental nature of matter differs significantly from that of traditional particle physics.
Rabbits Feet and Lucky Tattoos
What can a kicker or punter do to improve his accuracy? Unlike linemen, who are a deliberative, logical, and pensive group given to quiet self-introspection, these guys, as a class, are as superstitious as all get-out.
The Cosmic Landscape
It is gradually becoming accepted, by many theoretical physicists, that the Laws of Physics may not only be variable but are almost always deadly.