Writers’ Gallery
Our Writers' Gallery features short pieces about physics by authors who are both renowned physicists and prize-winning writers. Some of these are original contributions and others are excerpts from longer works. Many are linked to more information about the authors and their work.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Beauty of Trajectory
"Ignoring air resistance, cannon balls move along parabolas," we learn in school, but the truth is more intriguing.
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.
