Listen in: Why Trust Science? May 15, 2020 Naomi Oreskes has offered recent commentary on why many Americans reject the facts about the coronavirus and strategies for addressing a scientific skepticism that has long existed. Do doctors really know what they are talking about when they tell us vaccines are safe? Read More
Alice Calaprice on Einstein: The man behind the myth March 14, 2020 Alice Calaprice is the editor of the hugely popular collection of Einstein quotations that has sold tens of thousands of copies worldwide and been translated into twenty-five languages. This is the story of how her knack for German and quest for full-time work in Princeton, New Jersey led her to a career she never imagined. Read More
Space-Time Einstein! March 14, 2020 It is once again time to talk about time. On March 14, 1988, Larry Shaw of the San Francisco Exploratorium organized the first official “Pi Day” to celebrate mathematics (and also, for the broad minded, physics). Read More
Me, myself, and Einstein March 14, 2020 Jimena Canales is the author of The Physicist and the Philosopher, which tells the remarkable story of how an explosive debate between two intellectual giants transformed our understanding of time and drove a rift between science and the humanities that persists today. This is the story of how she came to study the iconic physicist when she initially had no interest in “such a great man, or any great men.” Read More
Hanoch Gutfreund on Einstein and the revelation of relativity March 12, 2020 Hanoch Gutfreund is professor emeritus of theoretical physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he is also the academic director of the Albert Einstein Archives. This is the story about how Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity revolutionized his teaching, understanding, and career. Read More
Katherine Freese on how relativity rejuvenated her career March 10, 2020 Katherine Freese is director of Nordita, the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, in Stockholm, and author of The Cosmic Cocktail, which tells of the epic quest to solve one of the most compelling enigmas of modern science—what is the universe made of? This is the story of how one of today’s foremost pioneers in the study of dark matter came back from the brink of burnout because of Relativity. Read More
For the beauty of invisibility January 06, 2020 Human beings are naturally visual creatures. Our eyes, capable of counting single photons, have been optimized over evolutionary time to the very limits of the laws of physics. Read More
Naomi Oreskes on Why Trust Science? November 13, 2019 Do doctors really know what they are talking about when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global warming? Why should we trust science when our own politicians don't? Read More
Susan Mattern on The Slow Moon Climbs October 01, 2019 Are the ways we look at menopause all wrong? Historian Susan Mattern says yes, and The Slow Moon Climbs reveals just how wrong we have been. Read More
Getting outside when day turns to night May 29, 2019 What’s the best way to commemorate a historic scientific experiment? Centenaries are popular, and one of the biggest is upcoming, the centenary of the 1919 eclipse observations that confirmed Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Read More
Daniel Kennefick on No Shadow of a Doubt May 01, 2019 In 1919, British scientists led extraordinary expeditions to Brazil and Africa to test Albert Einstein’s revolutionary new theory of general relativity in what became the century’s most celebrated scientific experiment. The result ushered in a new era and made Einstein a global celebrity by confirming his dramatic prediction that the path of light rays would be bent by gravity. Read More
William R. Newman on Newton the Alchemist November 07, 2018 When Isaac Newton’s alchemical papers surfaced at a Sotheby’s auction in 1936, the quantity and seeming incoherence of the manuscripts were shocking. Read More
Theodore Porter on Genetics in the Madhouse February 13, 2018 In the early 1800s, a century before there was any concept of the gene, physicians in insane asylums began to record causes of madness in their admission books. Read More