The Beauty of Falling April 19, 2024 While many of us presume to know gravity quite well, the brightest scientists in history have yet to fully answer the simple question: what exactly is gravity? De Rham reveals how great minds—from Newton and Einstein to Stephen Hawking, Andrea Ghez, and Roger Penrose—led her to the edge of knowledge about this fundamental force. Read More
The 2024 solar eclipse might be an omen, but what does it portend? April 18, 2024 As the warmest winter in human history draws to a close, many of us are unsure about what comes next. At least celestial mechanics are unaffected. Read More
Our innumerate democracy April 16, 2024 The Declaration of Independence is a mathematical document. It starts by proclaiming certain truths to be self-evident and proceeds to list them. In math, such statements are the axioms of a theory. Read More
Listen in: The Beauty of Falling April 16, 2024 Claudia de Rham is a world-renowned physicist seeking gravity’s true nature and who has found wisdom in embracing its force in her life. Listen to a sample chapter from the audiobook. Read More
James Marcus on Glad to the Brink of Fear April 15, 2024 James Marcus introduces us to Emerson as a visionary and a skeptic, an ardent lover and a fiery political activist. Read More
Listen in: After 1177 B.C. April 15, 2024 Filled with lessons for today’s world about why some societies survive massive shocks while others do not, After 1177 B.C. reveals why this period, far from being the First Dark Age, was a new age with new inventions and new opportunities. Read More
Nicholas Money on Molds, Mushrooms, and Medicines April 12, 2024 Nicholas Money takes readers on a guided tour of a marvelous unseen realm, describing the continuous conversation between our immune systems and the teeming mycobiome inside the body. Read More
Jorell Meléndez-Badillo on Puerto Rico: A National History April 12, 2024 Jorell Meléndez-Badillo provides a new history of Puerto Rico that gives voice to the archipelago’s people while offering a lens through which to understand the political, economic, and social challenges confronting them today. Read More
Why we practice magic April 11, 2024 Not many academic philosophers discuss magic, however, five centuries ago, prominent Renaissance philosophers wrote extensive treatises on the topic. Read More
Forging an American vision of Jewish masculinity April 11, 2024 When we think of Jewish masculinity in the United States, our imagination likely conjures up the quintessential nebbish: the neurotic, bookish, geeky intellectual type: think Woody Allen or, more recently, Seth Rogen or even Timothée Chalalemet. Read More
PUP Speaks: Allison Daminger on the unseen cognitive labor of women April 09, 2024 Allison Daminger introduces us to the idea of cognitive labor, a form of work akin to project management, and demonstrates that this invisible burden falls disproportionately on women. Read More
Listen in: Puerto Rico April 09, 2024 Puerto Rico is a Spanish-speaking territory of the United States with a history shaped by conquest and resistance. For centuries, Puerto Ricans have crafted and negotiated complex ideas about nationhood. Read More
Claudia de Rham on The Beauty of Falling April 02, 2024 Claudia de Rham shares captivating stories about her quest to gain intimacy with gravity, to understand both its feeling and fundamental nature. Her life’s pursuit led her from a twist of fate that snatched away her dream of becoming an astronaut to an exhilarating breakthrough at the very frontiers of gravitational physics. Read More
Amin Ghaziani on Long Live Queer Nightlife April 02, 2024 Not all gay bars are the same. And so, if there are many types of gay bars, then there must be many reasons why some of them are struggling. Those that have folded faced a variety of challenges, some unique to a particular place, others more widely shared. Read More
Leslie Valiant on The Importance of Being Educable March 26, 2024 We are at a crossroads in history. If we hope to share our planet successfully with one another and the AI systems we are creating, we must reflect on who we are, how we got here, and where we are heading. Read More